Machan, Secession, and Slavery

My friend Tibor Machan has courageously entered the fray over the issue of Lincoln and secession with a typically eloquent essay, "Lincoln, Secession and Slavery," on the Cato Institute’s website (June 1). I say "courageous" because his essay is not entirely a hymn of praise to Father Abraham, the standard prerequisite for "Lincoln scholarship" in America. Anyone who offers even the slightest criticism of Lincoln risks being smeared, lied about, and accused of the vilest intentions by the cult of "Lincoln scholars."

Machan does (rather timidly) admit to Lincoln’s "blemished record of following the ideal of free government in his political life" by suspending the writ of habeas corpus and ordering mass arrests of tens of thousands of Northern civilian opponents of his regime including dozens, if not hundreds, of newspaper editors and owners. And he correctly points out that when it suited his political purposes Lincoln clearly advocated secession, as he did in an 1848 speech about the Mexican War and with his unconstitutional orchestration of the secession of western Virginia during the war.

I use the word "timid" because generations of historians have agreed with Clinton Rossiter, author of Constitutional Dictatorship, when he called Lincoln a "dictator" and said that Lincoln’s "amazing disregard" for the Constitution was "considered by nobody as legal." In his 1998 book, Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era, Herman Belz expresses an odd puzzlement over "the persistence of the dictatorship convention" in descriptions of Lincoln by the scholarly community. There’s nothing puzzling about it, however; the "dictatorship convention" persists because it is true.

Machan’s analysis suffers from the exclusion of some very important facts. For example, he correctly states that many Southerners "endorsed out-and-out racist ideas" but this was true of the entire western world – including the Northern United States – during the Victorian era. To his credit, he points out that Lincoln also held such ideas by repeatedly stating his opposition to "bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races" (Aug. 21, 1858, debate with Stephen Douglas in Ottawa, Illinois).

In assessing the reasons for the war it is important to recognize that, as Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America (1945 Macmillan edition, p. 359): "[T]he prejudice of race appears to be stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those states where servitude has never been known." As Eugene Berwanger wrote in The Frontier Against Slavery (p. 97), "In virtually every phase of existence [in the North], Negroes found themselves systematically separated from whites." They were excluded or assigned to "Jim Crow" sections of all means of transportation; could not enter most hotels, restaurants, and other public buildings; had to sit in "Negro pews" in church; and were almost completely segregated from the white population.

Many Northern states adopted laws like Indiana’s which prohibited Negroes and mulattos from entering the state; did not recognize contracts with them; fined employers who encouraged black employees to enter the state; prohibited blacks from voting, marrying white persons (punishable by imprisonment), or testifying in court against white persons. Illinois – the "Land of Lincoln" – prohibited the immigration of black people into the state. Lincoln never expressed opposition to this, and even supported a state program to "colonize," i.e., deport, free blacks out of Illinois.

Lincoln and most Northerners did more than make racist statements; they discriminated against and legally abused the small number of free blacks among them. In states such as Indiana, the inability of blacks to testify in court against whites invited criminal abuse. This pervasive and institutionalized Northern racism is one reason why the standard story that hundreds of thousand of Northerners gave their lives during the war for the benefit of black strangers in the South is bizarre.

Machan’s abstract statements that a group that secedes from a political union should have no right to "take along hostages" and that the slaves would probably have preferred to keep the Union intact are complicated by actual American history. Both Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens and the preeminent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison believed that slavery was "more secure in the Union than out of it," as Stephens stated. This is because of the Fugitive Slave Act, which Lincoln wholeheartedly supported. The Act compelled the Northern states to capture runaway slaves. They were provided due process, but local magistrates were paid $10 for returning a slave to his owner, and only $5 for granting him freedom. It was a gigantic federal subsidy to prop up the institution of slavery, and would have become defunct with secession, making the enforcement of slavery much more costly. This is why Garrison and other Northern abolitionists advocated the secession of the Northern states. ("No Covenant with Death" was the secessionist banner across Garrison’s newspaper, The Liberator).

Machan is not entirely correct in stating that "the citizens of the union who intended to go their own way" were "kidnapping" slaves. Only a small percentage of Southerners owned slaves, who were mostly on the large plantations. The average Confederate soldier was a yeoman farmer, laborer, or merchant who did not own slaves and had no interest in maintaining the institution. As James McPherson wrote in What They Fought For: 1861-1865, most Confederate soldiers believed they were fighting against a tyrannical federal government that was invading their country and threatening their homes and families.

Another relevant fact is that the upper South – Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas – initially voted to remain in the Union after the lower South had seceded. Virginia voted two-to-one to remain in the Union and Lincoln was pleased to have her, slaves and all. It was only after Lincoln launched an invasion of Virginia’s sister states that she reversed herself and seceded after taking a popular vote; the other three states of the upper South then followed suit. Lincoln’s unconstitutional invasion was the main reason for Virginia’s secession. Machan’s condemnation of all Southerners as "kidnappers" is patently unfair and inaccurate.

Machan expresses concern for "unwilling third parties" during an act of secession but he ignores the fact that Lincoln conscripted tens of thousands of unwilling third parties, many of whom who were sent to grisly deaths in the war. Thousands of other conscripts were maimed for life. The fate of some of these men was truly horrific. In the May 1864 "Battle of the Wilderness" Ulysses S. Grant’s army suffered 2,246 soldiers killed and 12,037 wounded in just 48 hours. The battle was fought in a dense Virginia forest that caught on fire, trapping hundreds of wounded men who perished in the fire. Gordon Rhea cites a first-hand account of the scene in The Battle of the Wilderness: May 5-6, 1864 (p. 451): "Forest fires raged, ammunition trains exploded; the dead were roasted . . . ; the wounded, roused by its hot breath, dragged themselves along, with their torn and mangled limbs, in the mad energy of despair . . . ; and every bush seemed hung with shreds of blood-stained clothing . . . hell itself had usurped the place of earth."

There were draft riots in New York City and elsewhere after the conscription law was put into place (see Iver Bernstein, The New York City Draft Riots). Federal troops shot and killed hundreds of New York City antiwar protesters. Tens of thousands of Northern men either deserted or evaded the draft by hiding out in the mountains of Pennsylvania and elsewhere. In short, Machan’s "unwilling third parties" defense of Lincoln is not much of a defense if it does not incorporate a concern for all unwilling third parties.

Moreover, the purpose of the war was "to save the Union," as Lincoln said over and over again, not to free the slaves. (Actually, the war destroyed the Union as a voluntary association of states). As Machan notes, in his August 22, 1862 letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, Lincoln very clearly stated his position that if he could "save the Union" without freeing a single slave, he would do so. The issue of slavery was an ex post facto rationale for the war, at best.

The US Congress supported Lincoln’s position in mid-1861 when it issued a resolution on the purpose of the war. The war was not being waged, Congress declared,

". . . in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those [Southern] states, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several states unimpaired." (W.A. Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 13)

As I argue in The Real Lincoln, the Constitution that was established by the founders was largely overthrown by the war and replaced with what Columbia University law professor George P. Fletcher calls "our secret Constitution," one that promotes "egalitarianism, nationalism, and democracy" rather than liberty. The Southern states were in fact made into conquered provinces run by puppet governments set up by the Republican Party. The Tenth Amendment was effectively abolished, making a mockery out of the Congress’s "dignity, equality, and rights of the several states" pronouncement. The main purpose (and effect) of the war was to consolidate governmental power in Washington by military dictatorship. That is what 320,000 Northern men died for.

Lincoln and the Republican Party didn’t advocate consolidation for its own sake. Republican Senator John Sherman explained why Lincoln was elected in 1861 when he said: "Those who elected Mr. Lincoln expect him to secure to free labor its just right to the territories . . . to protect by wise revenue laws, the labor of our people; to secure the public lands to actual settlers . . . to develop the internal resources of the country by opening new means of communications between the Atlantic and Pacific."

David Donald "reinterprets" this in Lincoln Reconsidered to say that "Lincoln and the Republicans intended to enact a high protective tariff that mothered monopoly, to pass a homestead law that invited speculators to loot the public domain, and to subsidize a transcontinental railroad that afforded infinite opportunities for jobbery."

Donald left one thing out, however: The Republican Party’s opposition to the extension of slavery (but not Southern slavery) in its 1860 Platform was based on its desire to win votes from white laborers by promising to protect them from the labor market competition that slavery – or even the existence of freed blacks – would bring. None of this could have been achieved if the Southern states were allowed to secede and to quit paying federal taxes, especially the tariff on imported goods.

The Northern states ended slavery peacefully, as did dozens of other countries during the first half of the nineteenth century. This includes the British and Spanish empires and the French and Danish colonies. Only in the US was war and massive death associated with emancipation. Yet, Machan argues that for the US to have chosen the peaceful path to emancipation that the entire rest of the world had taken would be "obscene." But this must be weighed against the actual costs of the war, which included 620,000 deaths. Standardizing for today’s population, this would be the equivalent of more than 5 million deaths, or over 100 times the number of Americans who died in Vietnam. Not to mention the destruction of the Southern economy, the death of federalism and states’ rights, and the evisceration of the Constitution.

In Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men Jeffrey Hummel estimates that some 50,000 Southern civilians perished during the war, as Lincoln’s army waged war on civilians as well as combatants with its indiscriminate bombardment of Southern cities, even after Confederate troops had evacuated. This number of deaths has to include thousands of slaves. Machan’s analysis illegitimately ignores all of these obscene costs imposed on the nation by Lincoln’s war.

If Lincoln deserves the designation "Honest Abe," he should be taken at his word that he never intended to disturb Southern slavery and that the Emancipation Proclamation (which freed no one) was only a war measure intended to discourage European support for the Confederacy. Of all the countries on earth, the United States dealt with the issue of slavery in the worst possible way because of Lincoln’s obscene ambition (a "little engine that knew no rest," as William Herndon quaintly described it) to consolidate state power for the benefit of the Northern plutocracy that got him elected. It is doubtful that one in a million Northerners voted for Lincoln because they thought he would wage the bloodiest war in history up to that point to free the slaves, a power that no president possessed at the time.

A genuine statesman – as opposed to a cynical, manipulating, power-mad politician – would have done what England did and vigorously pursued a policy of compensated emancipation over five years. By the 1880s slavery was nonexistent throughout the world, and there is no reason to believe that America would have remained the lone exception on earth.

Two of the most prominent libertarians of Lincoln’s time – the British historian of liberty, Lord Acton, and the Massachusetts abolitionist Lysander Spooner – opposed Lincoln’s war. Lord Acton, who closely followed all the events of the war, concluded that slavery was not Lincoln’s main concern , but destroying the system of federalism and states rights (which Lincoln called "saving the Union") was. He took Lincoln at his word. In a November 4, 1866, letter to General Robert E. Lee Lord Acton wrote that "I saw in States’ rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy . . . . you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo."

Spooner, the author of the 1845 book, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery and a celebrated abolitionist, wrote in his 1870 essay, "No Treason," that "all these cries of having ‘abolished slavery,’ of having ‘preserved the union,’ of establishing a ‘government by consent,’ and of ‘maintaining the national honor’ are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats – so transparent that they ought to deceive no one." Thanks to 140 years of propaganda in the government schools, these "cheats" now appear to deceive nearly everyone.

These two nineteenth-century libertarian giants had a much clearer picture of Abraham Lincoln and his real agenda than does my friend Tibor Machan.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is the author of the LRC #1 bestseller, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (Forum/Random House 2002) and professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland.

DiLorenzo is the master of misrepresentation. Machan never claimed that Lincoln ordered "mass arrests of tens of thousands of Northern civilian opponents of his regime including dozens ... of newspaper editors and owners". The only arrest Machan mentions is the one involving two sleazy New York papers for their participation in the "Gold Hoax" scheme (in which they published a bogus document with the forged signature of President Lincoln) which resulted in only a three detention of the editors and suspension of their papers' publishing. As soon as it was established that a man by the name of Joseph Howard was behind the scheme to fradulently influence the gold market, the papers were back in business and publishing vile insults about Lincoln. (See Foote, The Civil War (III), pp. 376-379.)

And he correctly points out that when it suited his political purposes Lincoln clearly advocated secession...

Lincoln had no problem with people declaraing their independence for a morally justified cause. (See McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 248.) The Confederates, of course, were not declaring their independence from tyranny like the Colonial Patriots. Quite the contrary, the Confederates were declaring their hopeless dependence on the tyrannical institution of slavery (as the Mississppi declaration of secession put it, their position was "thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery").

...the "dictatorship convention" persists because it is true.

DiLorenzo certainly has a grossly broad definition of "dictator". Not many dictators face the possibility of impeachment or an election that they are so sure worried about losing that they make careful preparations for the transfer of their office (as Lincoln did by requiring his cabinet members to sign a document promising to cooperate fully in transferring power to McClelland after the upcoming 1864 election Lincoln fully expected to lose).

For example, he correctly states that many Southerners "endorsed out-and-out racist ideas" but this was true of the entire western world...

Apparently DiLorenzo has never heard of Radical Republicans and other abolitionists. The Southern secessionists even has a derisive name for moderate Republicans like Lincoln ("Black Republicans"), and here is how they characterized the threat they posed:

"In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color -- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law." (Emphasis added; Texas Declaration of Secession.)

It is apparent that DiLorenzo has never read Tocqueville carefully, because he ignores Tocqueville's explanation as to why that appeared to be the case:

"In the South the master is not afraid to raise his slave to his own standing, because he knows that he can in a moment reduce him to dust at pleasure." Democracy in America (Vintage Books ed. 1990), Vol 1, p. 360."

Of course, that was at a time (the 1830's) when the Northern abolition movement was still in its infancy. As it became a viable threat to the institution of slavery, the slaveholders cracked down on people who dared to educate or socialize with negroes and did all they could to play up the threat that free negroes would pose to poor white men and their women.

Illinois – the "Land of Lincoln" – prohibited the immigration of black people into the state. Lincoln never expressed opposition to this, and even supported a state program to "colonize," i.e., deport, free blacks out of Illinois.

The "black laws" were passed in Illinois by the Democrats -- most of whom were from the Southern part of the state which contained many people from slave states. Even though Lincoln was a moderate from the Southern part of the state and was born in a slave state, he was instrumental in the growth of the Radical Republican movement, which, with a great deal of growth in the northern part of the state in the 1840's, 50's, and 60's, eventually gained control of the state legislatures in Illinois (and other northern states) and abolished the "black laws".

In any event, there is an immense difference between discrimination and slavery. To the extent that Lincoln was somewhat of a racist, the influence he allowed Frederick Douglass to have over him and the valor he aw in negroes who fought in the Union Army almost totally removed any of Lincoln's lingering racism. In fact, it was Lincoln's bold suggestion that blacks should be permitted to vote in Louisiana that prompted Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth to assassinate him.

Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens and the preeminent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison believed that slavery was "more secure in the Union than out of it...

If either of them ever said this (DiLorenzo provides no source), they were clearly wrong in light of the historical events.

slavery was "more secure in the Union than out of it," ... because of the Fugitive Slave Act, which Lincoln wholeheartedly supported.

Wrong on both counts. The secessionists made it very clear in their declarations of secession that Republican/Northern states' opposition to the fugitive slave law was threatending their cherished institution.

Only a small percentage of Southerners owned slaves...

According to the 1860 Census, 30.9% of Confederate states' familes were slaveholders. That's hardly a "small percentage", and most of those that didn't own slaves aspired to do so and were thankful that there was a class of people in the South below the level of "poor white trash".

...most Confederate soldiers believed they were fighting against a tyrannical federal government...

Of course, their definiton of "tyrannical" was a government which threated to abolsih slavery. The Confederates became very skillful at euphemizing the institution of slavery when it became apparent that it was standing in the way of critical official recognition by the French and the Brits.

It was only after Lincoln launched an invasion of Virginia’s sister states that she reversed herself and seceded...

By "sister states", he of course means "fellow slave states". DiLorenzo has learned the Confederate euphemisms well.

Lincoln conscripted tens of thousands of unwilling third parties, many of whom who were sent to grisly deaths in the war.

Very few unwilling conscripts saw any hot action in the Union Army. The Confederate Army, on the other hand, instituted a draft much earlier and relied on it much more. Shelby Foote tells how Confederate Cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest would simply grab every young man he found in the fields and forcibly enlist them without even giving them a chance to bid farewell to their loved ones. (See The Civil War (III), p. 112.)

The hundreds of thousands of brave volunteers in the Union Army wanted nothing to do with conscripts and those who enlisted for the $300 bounty that draftees could pay as an alternative to service. Draftees mainly served in garrisons and prisons far away from the action.

There were draft riots in New York City and elsewhere...

Elsewhere where?

Federal troops shot and killed hundreds of New York City antiwar protesters.

Calling the violent New York mobs (mainly poor Irish immigrants) "antiwar protesters" is a real stretch. They were murderous thugs and looters who were egged on by the NYC Democratic machine. (See Battle Cry, pp. 608-610.)

Tens of thousands of Northern men either deserted or evaded the draft by hiding out in the mountains of Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

It wasn't too hard to avoid the draft. Many simply moved out west.

Moreover, the purpose of the war was "to save the Union," as Lincoln said over and over again, not to free the slaves.

What DiLorenzo always ignores is the fact that the Confederates are the ones who started the War by seceding and attacking Fort Sumter. To them the War was certainly about preserving slavery, even though Lincoln honestly thought at first that he could preserve the Union and thereby end slavery voluntarily. As the Confederate stubbornness became more apparent to him, though, he clearly came to the conclusion that forcibly preserving the Union and abolishing slavery went hand in hand.

The main purpose (and effect) of the war was to consolidate governmental power in Washington by military dictatorship.

If the Civil War resulted in a stronger central government vis-a-vis the states, there is no one to blame but the Confederates -- unless of course you want to accept the alternative of a slaveholderocracy south of the Mason-Dixon line. In actuality, the only federal power which increased as a result of the Civil War was the power to dissuade states from tyrannizing minorities. After the Civil War, overall federal spending remained on the same slow growth track that is had been on prior to the war, with no marked increases inthe rate of growth until the "New Deal" era of the 1930's.

Real Per Capita Expendatures: 1800-1990
(In Constant 1990 Dollars)

(Source.)

The Northern states ended slavery peacefully, as did dozens of other countries during the first half of the nineteenth century.

None of those countries/areas that ended slavery peacefully had such a large, powerful, and stubborn slaevholding class as the American South.

A genuine statesman – as opposed to a cynical, manipulating, power-mad politician – would have done what England did and vigorously pursued a policy of compensated emancipation over five years.

Lincoln made numnerous attempts to pursue compensated emancipation, but even when the institution of slavery was on its deathbed, even the border Union slave states refused his offers.

Lord Acton, who closely followed all the events of the war, concluded that slavery was not Lincoln’s main concern , but destroying the system of federalism and states rights...

Like most British aristocrats, Lord Acton identified with the slaveholders, not the abolitionists.

Spooner apparently had a very broad definition of "slavery", but nevertheless, were the 13th Amendment to be given full meaning, all forms of "involuntary servitude" would be thereby abolished. Unfortunately, there have always been far too many Americans willing to accept some degree of "involuntary servitude" as long as they perceive that they may one day become the servees, and any constitution like ours that permits any majoritarian tyrannny encourages such parasitism. Tocqueville recognized this flaw in the American system long before Lincoln or the Civil War came along. Nevertheless, we are lucky that Lincoln helped to save us from the Confederates -- who turned majoritarian tyranny into a high art form.

Bump for the Bonnie Blue.

Here's a brief compilation of Lincoln's tax and spend philosophy in his own words that I recently put together for a blast email. Thought you might enjoy or find some of Lincoln's own quotes useful...

In light of the publication of Thomas DiLorenzo's book a great deal of recent debate has circulated about the issue of Abraham Lincoln's actions on the issue of taxation and the tariff. A major argument of DiLorenzo's text and articles is that Lincoln, throughout his career, was a strong proponent of protectionist tariffs and a mercantilist/whig economic system. DiLorenzo argues that this motive played a role in his political career, including his presidency.

Critics of DiLorenzo have repeatedly downplayed this aspect of Lincoln, arguing instead his politics to have centered around the slavery issue. While it is a fallacy to attempt to reduce Lincoln's involvement and motives during his presidency and during the war to any one single issue, the tariff cannot simply be ignored as some Lincoln defenders would have it. For that reason, here is a brief sample from the historical record of Lincoln's long and prominent career as a proponent of protectionist tariffs and increased taxation. Enjoy.

"After Mr. Baker sat down, Mr. Lincoln was again called upon. He took up the three prominent principles of the Whig Party---The Tariff , a sound and uniform National Currency and the Distribution of the proceeds of the Public Lands. All these he illustrated so plainly and so forcibly, as to show that he not only understood these principles thoroughly himself and their beneficial bearing on the American people, but that he also possessed a most happy faculty of vindicating them and of urging their adoption before an audience in such a manner as to convince all present of their necessity." - The Burlington Hawk Eye, October 19, 1843

"Mr. Lincoln made some large statements, but I suppose they were true, for he had the document with him. He attempted to make the farmer believe that the high pressure tariff made every thing they bought cheaper, but said also he could not tell the reason, but that it was so, and I suppose that is enough for the huge farmer to know." - Account printed in the Illinois State Register, March 15, 1844

" Mr. Lincoln, of Springfield, Ill., addressed a large and respectable audience at the court house on Wednesday evening last, upon the whig policy. His main argument was directed in pointing out the advantages of a Protective Tariff." - The Rockport Herald, November 1, 1844

"[T]here was a respectable gathering of the citizens of our village, and Mr. Lincoln gave us a good speech. The Tariff was the principal subject, with which he showed himself to be thoroughly acquainted. In a most logical, argumentative effort, he demonstrated the necessity of a discriminating tariff, and the excellence of that adopted by the whig congress of 1842; and also that the consumer does not usually pay the tariff, but the manufacturer and importer." - The Illinois Gazette, July 5, 1846

"The people of this city were addressed at the court house on Friday evening last, by Hon. A. LINCOLN, of Springfield. He showed up the inconsistency of the sham democracy on the question of internal improvements in such a manner that it is not to be wondered at that the friends of Pierce and King were dissatisfied. On the subject of the tariff he advocated the American side of the question, asking why, instead of sending a distance of 4,000 miles for our railroad iron, the immense iron beds of Missouri were not worked, affording a better article than that of English manufacture, and giving employment to American labor. On this point, he agreed with that distinguished democrat, Benton, who does not believe with the President of the Peoria Pierce Club, that a protective tariff is a tax on the poor for the benefit of the rich. After alluding to the evasiveness exhibited in the celebrated platform adopted by the Democratic National Convention, the speaker contrasted the claims of the respective candidates to the support of the American people. Gen. Pierce had been a member of the U.S. Senate for five years and of the Lower House four years, and if he is the possessor of the great civil qualifications claimed for him by his friends, where is the evidence? Instead of possessing eminent civil abilities, said Mr. LINCOLN, did not an examination of the record prove that he is not worthy of the extravagant praises now bestowed upon him by his partizan friends. His votes show that he was the steady, consistent enemy of western improvements, and judging of the future by the past, should Mr. Pierce be elected he would surely veto such internal improvement bills as the one recently passed by Congress." - Peoria Weekly Republican, September 24, 1852

To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled :

The undersigned citizens of Sangamon County of the State of Illinois, respectfully request Congress to establish by law a TARIFF of duties, so as to prevent excessive importations of goods, and excessive exportations of specie; to create a Home market for agricultural productions; a Home demand for the skill and industry of our people; to raise revenue enough to relieve the nation from debt and to support the government, and so to foster our manufactures as to make our nation PROSPEROUS in Peace and INDEPENDENT in War.

Abraham Lincoln is one of the 271 signatures in this May 1842 petition. (printed in Collected works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy Basler, editor)

Resolutions drafted by an Illinois Whig political party committee on which Lincoln served, adopted at the Illinois statehouse, March 14 1843 (printed in Collected works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy Basler, editor)

Resolved , That a Tariff of duties on imported goods, producing sufficient Revenue, for the payment of the necessary expenditures of the National Government, and so adjusted as to protect American Industry, is indispensably necessary to the prosperity of the American people.
Resolved , That we are opposed to Direct Taxation for the support of the National Government. Resolved , That a National Bank, properly restricted, is highly necessary and proper to the establishment and maintainance of a sound currency; and for the cheap and safe collection, keeping, and disbursing the public revenue. Resolved , That the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of Public Lands, upon the principles of Clay's bill, accords with the best interests of the Nation, and particularly with those of the State of Illinois.
Resolved , That we recommend to the whigs of each Congressional District of the State, to nominate and support, at the approaching election, a candidate of their own principles, regardless of the chances of success.
Resolved , That we recommend to the whigs of all portions of this State to adopt, and rigidly adhere to, the Convention System of nominating candidates.
Resolved , That we recommend to the whigs of each Congressional District to hold a District Convention on or before the first Monday of May next, to be composed of a number of delegates from each county equal to double the number of its Representatives in the General Assembly, provided each county shall have at least one delegate. Said delegates to be chosen by primary meetings of the whigs, at such times and places as they in their respective counties may see fit. Said District Conventions, each, to nominate one candidate for Congress, and one delegate to a National Convention, for the purpose of nominating candidates for President and Vice President of the United States. The seven delegates so nominated to a National Convention, to have power to add two delegates to their own number, and to fill all vacancies.
Resolved , That A. T. Bledsoe, S. T. Logan, and A. Lincoln, be appointed a committee to prepare an address to the People of the State.

"By a resolution of a meeting of such of the Whigs of the State, as are now at Springfield, we, the undersigned, were appointed to prepare an address to you. [2] The performance of that task we now undertake. Several resolutions were adopted by the meeting; and the chief object of this address is, to show briefly, the reasons for their adoption. The first of those resolutions declares a tariff of duties upon foreign importations, producing sufficient revenue for the support of the General Government, and so adjusted as to protect American industry, to be indispensably necessary to the prosperity of the American People." - Lincoln's address to the People of the State with Bledsoe and Logan, 1843

"That foremost in importance among these principles we recognize and affirm, that of providing a national revenue by a tariff of duties on foreign importations, so adjusted that while it will yield no more than is necessary for an economical and efficient administration of the federal government, will at the same time afford equal protection and encouragement to every branch of American Industry." - Illinois Whig Platform of 1844, drafted by Abraham Lincoln, William Kellogg, Jonathan Y. Scammon, William F. Bryan, Lincoln B. Knowlton, J. R. Cooper, Samuel H. Davis, John M. Smith, and William Broaddus

Letter from Lincoln to Dr. Edward Wallace, October 11, 1859 (printed in Collected works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy Basler, editor)

My dear Sir:

I am here, just now, attending court. Yesterday, before I left Springfield, your brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a letter of yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquire for my tariff views; and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter upon the subject. I was an old Henry Clay tariff whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject, than on any other. I have not since changed my views. I believe yet, if we could have a moderate, carefully adjusted, protective tariff, so far acquiesed in, as to not be a perpetual subject of political strife, squabbles, charges, and uncertainties, it would be better for us. Still, it is my opinion that, just now, the revival of that question, will not advance the cause itself, or the man who revives it. I have not thought much upon the subject recently; but my general impression is, that the necessity for a protective tariff will, ere long, force it's old opponents to take it up; and then it's old friends can join in, and establish it on a more firm and durable basis. We, the old whigs, have been entirely beaten out on the tariff question; and we shall not be able to re-establish the policy, until the absence of it, shall have demonstrated the necessity for it, in the minds of men heretofore opposed to it.

With this view, I should prefer, to not now, write a public letter upon the subject. I therefo[re] wish this to be considered confidential.

I shall be very glad to receive a letter from you. Yours truly

A. LINCOLN

\
Letter from Lincoln to Jamed E. Hervey, October 2, 1860 (printed in Collected works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy Basler, editor)

Private and confidential
October 2, 1860.

My dear Sir: To comply with your request to furnish extracts from my tariff speeches is simply impossible, because none of those speeches were published. It was not fashionable here in those days to report one's public speeches. In 1844 I was on the Clay electoral ticket in this State (i.e., Illinois) and, to the best of my ability, sustained, together, the tariff of 1842 and the tariff plank of the Clay platform . This could be proven by hundreds---perhaps thousands---of living witnesses; still it is not in print, except by inference. The Whig papers of those years all show that I was upon the electoral ticket; even though I made speeches, among other things about the tariff, but they do not show what I said about it. The papers show that I was one of a committee which reported, among others, a resolution in these words:

``That we are in favor of an adequate revenue on duties from imports so levied as to afford ample protection to American industry.''

But, after all, was it really any more than the tariff plank of our present platform? And does not my acceptance pledge me to that? And am I at liberty to do more, if I were inclined? Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

"It appears to me that the national debt created by the war, renders a modification of the existing tariff indispensable; and when it shall be modified, I should be pleased to see it adjusted with a due reference to the protection of our home industry. The particulars, it appears to me, must and should be left to the untramelled discretion of Congress." - Abraham Lincoln, draft remarks, written circa March 1848

"But is there any doubt as to what he will do on the prominent questions, if elected? Not the least. It is not possible to know what he will, or would do, in every immaginable case; because many questions have passed away, and others doubtless will arise which none of us have yet thought of; but on the prominent questions of Currency, Tariff , internal improvements, and Wilmot Proviso, Gen: Taylor's course is at least as well defined as is Gen: Cass'. Why, in their eagerness to get at Gen: Taylor, several democratic members here, have desired to know whether, in case of his election, a bankrupt law is to be established. Can they tell us Gen: Cass' opinion on this question? (Some member answered ``He is against it'') Aye, how do you know he is? There is nothing about it in the Platform, nor elsewhere that I have seen. If the gentleman knows of any thing, which I do not, he can show it. But to return: Gen: Taylor, in his Allison letter, says "Upon the subject of the tariff, the currency, the improvements of our great high-ways, rivers, lakes, and harbors, the will of the people, as expressed through their representatives in congress, ought to be respected and carried out by the executive." - Rep. Abraham Lincoln in support of the Whig qualifications of presidential candidate Zachary Taylor, July 27, 1848

"What good thing, or even part of good thing has the country ever enjoyed, which originated with him? What evil thing has ever been averted by him? Compare his proofs of statesmanship with those of Mr. Fillmore, up to the times respectively when their names were first connected with presidential elections. Mr. Fillmore, if I remember rightly, had not been in Congress so long as Mr. or Gen. Pierce; yet he did acquire the distinction of being placed at the head of one of the most important Committees; and as its Chairman, was the principal member of the H.R. in manturing the tariff of 1842." - Abraham Lincoln, in opposition to Democrat presidential candidate Franklin Pierce, August 14, 1852

"According to my political education, I am inclined to believe that the people in the various sections of the country should have their own views carried out through their representatives in Congress, and if the consideration of the Tariff bill should be postponed until the next session of the National Legislature, no subject should engage your representatives more closely than that of a tariff . And if I have any recommendation to make, it will be that every man who is called upon to serve the people in a representative capacity, should study this whole subject thoroughly, as I intend to do myself, looking to all the varied interests of our common country, so that when the time for action arrives adequate protection can be extended to the coal and iron of Pennsylvania, the corn of Illinois, and the ``reapers of Chicago.'' Permit me to express the hope that this important subject may receive such consideration at the hands of your representatives, that the interests of no part of the country may be overlooked, but that all sections may share in common the benefits of a just and equitable tariff." - Abraham Lincoln in support of the tariff bill, February 15, 1861

"In the Chicago Platform there is a plank upon this subject, which should be a general law, to the incoming administration. We should do neither more nor less than we gave the people reason to believe we would, when they gave us their votes. That plank is as I now read: 'That, while providing revenue for the support of the General Government by duties upon imposts, sound policy requires such an adjustment of the imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interest of the whole country, and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the working men liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence.'" - Abraham Lincoln, February 15, 1861

...and for a brief glimpse into the economic mindset of Abraham Lincoln, let's take a look another assertion of his from the same speech, though the second part of it, indicated in bold, could have just as easily originated from a certain German economist who was a contemporary of Lincoln's own time...

"I have long thought that if there be any article of necessity which can be produced at home with as little or nearly the same labor as abroad, it would be better to protect that article. Labor is the true standard of value." - Abraham Lincoln, February 15, 1861

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