The Real Lincoln

"You see more than do most men."
--Abraham Lincoln (The Blue and the Gray)

Finally finished Tom DiLorenzo's The Real Lincoln. Eye opening book on which I will reflect more fully in posts ahead. For now, a few summary thoughts:

Main purpose of the Civil War. Any serious student of history soon realizes that 'freeing the slaves' was not the primary, or likely even tertiary, motivator of the Civil War. Lincoln's oft stated objective behind the war was to 'preserve the Union'--meaning that he wanted to prevent Southern states from seceeding. But why was this Lincoln's motivator? When one begins to understand Lincoln's hunger for political power and his allegiance to Clay's American System, then the dot connecting gets easier...

Main consequence of the Civil War. Clearly, the key outcome of the Civil War is that it squelched the notion of federalism--i.e., the founding idea that states are sovereign and that the federal government served the states. Perversely, since the end of the Civil War, revisionists have tried to argue that it was the federal government that created the states.

The reason that the end of federalism was so important was that the loss of states' rights removed the 'last best bulwark' (Wilson, 1998) of constitutional liberty as envisioned by the founders. The last bulwark consisted of a state's right to leave the union should it feel that the federal government was overstepping its constitutional limits. Without that right, the people hand their sovereignty over to judges who tell us what orders we must obey. This is, of course, the precise course of US government since 1865.

Tainted history. I've mentioned before that the more I dig into US history, the greater my surprise over what I don't know about our path from there to here. Now, I'll be the first to admit that history was never my favorite subject in school, but it seems clear that my ignorance is not merely the result of not paying attention in class. US history has clearly been slanted.

There is perhaps no greater example of this than Lincoln and the Civil War. Lincoln the humanitarian and emancipator when the data suggest Lincoln as tyrant and centralizer. The Civil War as a just war to free the slaves when the data suggest the Civil War as unjust to terroize people seeking to govern themselves.

History as taught here in the US has an agenda. Which implies self-study as the path to the Truth.

References

DiLorenzo, T.J. 2002. The real Lincoln. New York: Three Rivers Press.

Wilson, C. 1999. Secession: The last, best bulwark of our constitutional liberties. In D. Gordon (ed.), Secession, state and liberty: 89-98. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.