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Thanks in advance for a transparent, tight, and intelligible reply as would befit one of your background.

Lincoln cites the Bank controversy in many speeches, including the ones DiLorenzo names. The sole purpose of those citations is to convict Douglas of inconsistency in his stance regarding the authority of Court decisions.

But DiLorenzo uses the citations as though Lincoln were rearguing the Bank controvesy itself.

That is either ignorant or deceptive.

There is also an error of a year in dating the debates, [DiLorenzo has them "one month" after the 1857 speech] but such things do happen to many of us, even in published books. A good editor should help one catch it, and it makes one look foolish, but its a venial sin in historical writing.

There are other errors of greater consequence in the column, and now, I gather, in the book, but the controversy was about these two.

I hope I've met your standards of clarity.

Regards,

Richard F.

There is also an error of a year in dating the debates, [DiLorenzo has them "one month" after the 1857 speech]

To avoid misunderstanding, I am taking "debates" here to include the back and forth with Douglas a few weeks before the seven famous debates were held. The speech in question seems to have been a reply to Douglas on July 17th, 1858. The first of the 7 debates took place on August 21st, 1858.

Lincoln makes the same use of the Court's decision in the 7 Debates that he did in the previous speeches. He always uses it solely for the purpose of showing Douglas' inconsistency when the issue changed to slavery in Dred Scott. Lincoln is so single-minded about this use of the Court's decision that an impatient listener [recorded as 'an Hibernian' in my edition] is quoted as interrupting hiim in the first Debate with these words, "Give us something besides Dred Scott!"

DiLorezo, unlike the Hibernian, misunderstands Licoln's use of the issue in the Debate, too, as Quackenbush points out.

Best to you,

Richard F.

I am sorry to say that your attack on DiLorenzo seems, at least to me, largely specious and mired in minutiae.

Despite some minor inconsistencies I believe his work is valuable and shows the tyrant in his correct light. No doubt he, like most of us, has to work fast and in so doing "extrapolates" sometimes when he shouldn't. I must say, however, that I find much more veracity in his position than in that of yourself and Mr. Quackenbush (if indeed you still hold to your position that old "Honest Abe" had an altruistic bent toward the slaves)

My view is that he simply saw them as nuisancesome pawns.