[rwfromkansas]

What is your approach on Lincoln and the North.....positive or negative mostly?

Looks like a good book. I am looking forward to reading it.

[LS]

Unlike Thomas DiLorenzo, I'm a Lincolnophile. We see the CW as entirely slavery driven (interestingly, I just started a new academic project with two economists, one from COlumbia and one from Tulane, on slave price data that we think will really nail down the fact that it was slavery, and not tariffs or "clash of cultures" that was driving secession).

We agree with Higgs and Hummell that the CW caused a vast new expansion of the federal bureaucracy, much of it a-constitutional, but in the long run see that as being the only way to solve the problem that the Republic had punted on three times already.