POLITICALLY CORRECT HISTORY - LINCOLN MYTH DEBUNKED

LewRockwell.com ^ | January 23, 2003 | Thomas J. DiLorenzo, PHD

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Politically Correct History by Thomas J. DiLorenzo The political left in America has apparently decided that American history must be rewritten so that it can be used in the political campaign for reparations for slavery. Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., of Chicago inserted language in a Department of Interior appropriations bill for 2000 that instructed the National Park Service to propagandize about slavery as the sole cause of the war at all Civil War park sites. The Marxist historian Eric Foner has joined forces with Jackson and will assist the National Park Service in its efforts at rewriting history so that it better serves the political agenda of the far left. Congressman Jackson has candidly described this whole effort as "a down payment on reparations." (Foner ought to be quite familiar with the "art" of rewriting politically-correct history. He was the chairman of the committee at Columbia University that awarded the "prestigious" Bancroft Prize in history to Emory University’s Michael A. Bellesiles, author of the anti-Second Amendment book, "Arming America," that turned out to be fraudulent. Bellesiles was forced to resign from Emory and his publisher has ceased publishing the book.) In order to accommodate the political agenda of the far left, the National Park Service will be required in effect to teach visitors to the national parks that Abraham Lincoln was a liar. Neither Lincoln nor the US Congress at the time ever said that slavery was a cause – let alone the sole cause – of their invasion of the Southern states in 1861. Both Lincoln and the Congress made it perfectly clear to the whole world that they would do all they could to protect Southern slavery as long as the secession movement could be defeated. On March 2, 1861, the U.S. Senate passed a proposed Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution (which passed the House of Representatives on February 28) that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with slavery in the Southern states. (See U.S. House of Representatives, 106th Congress, 2nd Session, The Constitution of the United States of America: Unratified Amendments, Document No. 106-214, presented by Congressman Henry Hyde (Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office, January 31, 2000). The proposed amendment read as follows: ARTICLE THIRTEEN No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State. Two days later, in his First Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln promised to support the amendment even though he believed that the Constitution already prohibited the federal government from interfering with Southern slavery. As he stated: I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution . . . has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose, not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable (emphasis added). This of course was consistent with one of the opening statements of the First Inaugural, where Lincoln quoted himself as saying: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." That’s what Lincoln said his invasion of the Southern states was not about. In an August 22, 1862, letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley he explained to the world what the war was about: My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union. Of course, many Americans at the time, North and South, believed that a military invasion of the Southern states would destroy the union by destroying its voluntary nature. To Lincoln, "saving the Union" meant destroying the secession movement and with it the Jeffersonian political tradition of states’ rights as a check on the tyrannical proclivities of the central government. His war might have "saved" the union geographically, but it destroyed it philosophically as the country became a consolidated empire as opposed to a constitutional republic of sovereign states. On July 22, 1861, the US Congress issued a "Joint Resolution on the War" that echoed Lincoln’s reasons for the invasion of the Southern states: Resolved: . . . That this war is not being prosecuted upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and all laws made in pursuance thereof and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several states unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease. By "the established institutions of those states" the Congress was referring to slavery. As with Lincoln, destroying the secession movement took precedence over doing anything about slavery. On March 2, 1861 – the same day the "first Thirteenth Amendment" passed the U.S. Senate – another constitutional amendment was proposed that would have outlawed secession (See H. Newcomb Morse, "The Foundations and Meaning of Secession," Stetson Law Review, vol. 15, 1986, pp. 419–36). This is very telling, for it proves that Congress believed that secession was in fact constitutional under the Tenth Amendment. It would not have proposed an amendment outlawing secession if the Constitution already prohibited it. Nor would the Republican Party, which enjoyed a political monopoly after the war, have insisted that the Southern states rewrite their state constitutions to outlaw secession as a condition of being readmitted to the Union. If secession was really unconstitutional there would have been no need to do so. These facts will never be presented by the National Park Service or by the Lincoln cultists at the Claremont Institute, the Declaration Foundation, and elsewhere. This latter group consists of people who have spent their careers spreading lies about Lincoln and his war in order to support the political agenda of the Republican Party. They are not about to let the truth stand in their way and are hard at work producing "educational" materials that are filled with false but politically correct history. For a very different discussion of Lincoln and his legacy that is based on fact rather than fantasy, attend the LewRockwell.com "Lincoln Reconsidered" conference at the John Marshall Hotel in Richmond, Virginia on March 22. January 23, 2003 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. Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com Thomas DiLorenzo Archives Really Learn About the Real Lincoln Now there is a study guide and video to accompany Professor DiLorenzo's great work, for homeschoolers and indeed anyone interested in real American history. http://www.fvp.info/reallincolnlr/

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[WhiskeyPapa]

Use of The Lincoln as a national civic model is a central tenet of the Claremonster agenda and of those who follow it.

Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln....

-- Ronald Reagan , first inaugural address, January 20, 1981

"A hundred and twenty years ago the greatest of all our Presidents delivered his second State of the Union Message in this chamber. "We cannot escape history," Abraham Lincoln warned. "We of this Congress and this Administration will be re membered in spite of ourselves." The "trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation." Well, that President and that Congress did not fail the American people. Together, they weathered the storm and preserved the union. Let it be said of us that we, too did not fail ; that we, too, worked together to bring America through difficult times. Let us so conduct ourselves that two centuries from now, another Congress and another President, meeting in this chamber as we're meeting, will speak of us with pride, saying that we met the test and preserved for them in their day the sacred flame of liberty this last, best hope of man on Earth.

-- Ronald Reagan , State of the Union Address -January 26, 1982

"We knew then what the liberal Democrat leaders just couldn't figure out....I heard those speakers at that other convention saying "we won the Cold War" -- and I couldn't help wondering, just who exactly do they mean by "we"? And to top it off, they even tried to portray themselves as sharing the same fundamental values of our party! What they truly don't understand is the principle so eloquently stated by Abraham Lincoln:

"You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves." If we ever hear the Democrats quoting that passage by Lincoln and acting like they mean it, then, my friends, we will know that the opposition has really changed. Until then, we see all that rhetorical smoke, billowing out from the Democrats, well ladies and gentlemen, I'd follow the example of their nominee. Don't inhale."

---Ronald Reagan, 1992 Republican Convention Speech

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

The Lincoln's little pro-slavery amendment would have had the effect of artificially extending the institution well beyond its likely life by making it near impossible to repeal at a future date. You can fib all you like about The Lincoln, Walt, but that won't make his amendment go away nor will it change the text of that amendment, which would have protected slavery indefinately.

Kind of like what the confederate constitution did from the get go.

[shuckmaster]

God bless DiLorenzo for keeping the truth out there in the face of liberal socialist revisionism.

[WhiskeyPapa]

God bless DiLorenzo for keeping the truth out there in the face of liberal socialist revisionism.

It's DiLorenzo that is doing the revision.

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

The war came because the slave power resisted a peaceful settlement.

Nonsense. The war came because The Lincoln wouldn't have it any other way. He intentionally acted in a manner that both instigated violence and exacerbated it. To the former effect, he sent a fleet of warships to Sumter with the clear intent of instigating a conflict. To the latter, he raised armies of invasion to expand that conflict when it erupted into full fledged war and further dispositioned several non-seceded states toward war by way of those armies and the blockade.

Keeping slavery out of the national territories would have been a good foothold on a peaceful solution

No, not really. As a "solution" it offers nothing to address the desire for political separation from the north.

Maybe President Lincoln was right when he said that if every drop of blodd drawn by the lash must be matched by one drawn with the sword, then no one could say that the judgments of the Lord were not true and righteous.

Or maybe his saying so was an arrogantly presumptuous attempt to rationalize away the sins of his own side by blasphemously characterizing them as divinely acceptable retribution against the sins of another. Sorry Walt, but The Lincoln was not a god and for him to claim legitimacy in his crusade of sin by calling it something other than sin is a blasphemous perversion of the truth and the Christian religion.

"The Richmond Examiner stated their choice in unflinching language

Quote a fringe opinion all you like, Walt. That won't change the fact that even your own source said that opinion was not representative of those beyond the fringe. In the meantime I'll happily point out Robert E. Lee's opinion. He said "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages."

And also for the record, you'll have a hard time convincing much of anyone, Walt - even your own - that opinions from the Fitzhugh fringe were more representative of the south than those of Lee, a mainstream southern figure if there ever was one.

[GOPcapitalist]

It's DiLorenzo that is doing the revision.

Evidence please. What facts in DiLorenzo's article do you dispute, Walt.

[thatdewd]

The Supreme Court unanimously agreed that secession was outside the law in The Prize Cases (1862).

First of all, it was 1863. Secondly, it was not unanimous. Thirdly, the "Prize Cases" decided nothing about secession and made no attempt to. It was strictly about whether or not Lincoln had the authority to post the blockade since Congress had not declared war when he did it. In the "Prize Cases", the Supreme Court only decided that war existed between the two parties and that the president had the authority to react to a state of war before congressional declaration. No decision was made in regards to the legality or illegality of secession, and they did not declare the war to be an illegal insurrection. Those points were not the issue, and they avoided them.

The president's powers were adequate to put down the rebellion under the Militia Act of 1792, which was cited by the Court in the majority ruling.

The Militia act was 1795, not 1792. They cited it and the one of 1807 to show the president had authority to react to a state of war before Congressional declaration. They did not brand the war an illegal insurrection as you deceitfully suggest. From the majority decision:

"he is authorized to call out the militia and use the military and naval forces of the United States in case of invasion by foreign nations, and to suppress insurrection against the government of a State or of the United States. If a war be made by invasion of a foreign nation, the President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by force. He does not initiate the war, but is bound to accept the challenge without waiting for any special legislative authority. And whether the hostile party be a foreign invader, or States organized in rebellion, it is none the less a war, although the declaration of it be "unilateral."

Also:

"The president was bound to meet it in the shape it presented itself, without waiting for Congress to baptize it with a name, and no name given to it by him or them could change the fact."

Once again, they only decided that a state of war existed and the President has the duty to react before Congressional declaration. The type or nature of that war was immaterial to the issue at hand. It seems you are completely rehashing events, the history of which are readily available in the record.

[GOPcapitalist]

It wasn't Lincoln's amendment.

The historical documents say otherwise:

Letter from William Seward to Abraham Lincoln
Washington Dec. 26, 1860.

My Dear Sir,

Having been hurried away from home by information that my attendance here on Monday would be necessary, I had only the opportunity for conferring with Mr Weed which was afforded by our journey together on the rail road from Syracuse to Albany.

He gave me verbally the substance of the suggestion you proposed for the consideration of the Republican members, but not the written proposition. This morning I received the latter from him and also information for the first time of your expectation that I would write to you concerning the temper of parties and the public here.

I met on Monday my Republican associates of the Committee of Thirteen, and afterwards the whole committee. With the unanimous consent of our section I offered three propositions which seemed to me to cover the ground of the suggestion made by you through Mr Weed as I understood it.

First. That the constitution should never be altered so as to authorise Congress to abolish or interfere with slavery in the states. This was accepted.

----

The committee records display a text for this proposition "first" that is identical to that of the amendment The Lincoln endorsed in his inaugural address.

[GOPcapitalist]

So Reagan said a couple nice things about Lincoln. Lots of politicians do that. It doesn't make him a Claremonster though, so I'm not sure what your point is.

Also, I thought you didn't like President Reagan. Yet now you're quoting him? Go figure.

[GOPcapitalist]

If you add that part of the letter, it hurts the interpretation that DiLorenzo is pushing, so he ignores it, as he ignores the whole thrust of Lincoln's position:

No, not really and quite to the contrary. DiLorenzo's thesis is that The Lincoln was a politician with great skill at manuevering and advancing himself politically. The last part of that letter is a concession by The Lincoln, in nicer words of course, that he was ready to manuever whatever way it took to get his desired result of victory. He says so himself - "I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause" etc.

[WhiskeyPapa]

The Supreme Court unanimously agreed that secession was outside the law in The Prize Cases (1862).

First of all, it was 1863.

Well, here's the cite:

Prize Cases, 67 U.S. 635 (1862)

Opinion of the Court Mr. Justice GRIER.

There are certain propositions of law which must necessarily affect the ultimate decision of these cases, and many others which it will be proper to discuss and decide before we notice the special facts peculiar to each.

They are, 1st. Had the President a right to institute a blockade of ports in possession of persons in armed rebellion against the Government, on the principles of international law, as known and acknowledged among civilized States?

2d. Was the property of persons domiciled or residing within those States a proper subject of capture on the sea as "enemies' property?"

I.

Neutrals have a right to challenge the existence of a blockade de facto, and also the authority of the party exercising the right to institute it. They have a right to enter the ports [p*666] of a friendly nation for the purposes of trade and commerce, but are bound to recognize the rights of a belligerent engaged in actual war, to use this mode of coercion, for the purpose of subduing the enemy.

That a blockade de facto actually existed, and was formally declared and notified by the President on the 27th and 30th of April, 1861, is an admitted fact in these cases.

That the President, as the Executive Chief of the Government and Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, was the proper person to make such notification has not been, and cannot be disputed.

The right of prize and capture has its origin in the "jus belli," and is governed and adjudged under the law of nations. To legitimate the capture of a neutral vessel or property on the high seas, a war must exist de facto, and the neutral must have knowledge or notice of the intention of one of the parties belligerent to use this mode of coercion against a port, city, or territory, in possession of the other.

Let us enquire whether, at the time this blockade was instituted, a state of war existed which would justify a resort to these means of subduing the hostile force.

War has been well defined to be, "That state in which a nation prosecutes its right by force."

The parties belligerent in a public war are independent nations. But it is not necessary, to constitute war, that both parties should be acknowledged as independent nations or sovereign States. A war may exist where one of the belligerents claims sovereign rights as against the other.

Insurrection against a government may or may not culminate in an organized rebellion, but a civil war always begins by insurrection against the lawful authority of the Government. A civil war is never solemnly declared; it becomes such by its accidents -- the number, power, and organization of the persons who originate and carry it on. When the party in rebellion occupy and hold in a hostile manner a certain portion of territory, have declared their independence, have cast off their allegiance, have organized armies, have commenced hostilities [p*667] against their former sovereign, the world acknowledges them as belligerents, and the contest a war. They claim to be in arms to establish their liberty and independence, in order to become a sovereign State, while the sovereign party treats them as insurgents and rebels who owe allegiance, and who should be punished with death for their treason.

The laws of war, as established among nations, have their foundation in reason, and all tend to mitigate the cruelties and misery produced by the scourge of war. Hence the parties to a civil war usually concede to each other belligerent rights. They exchange prisoners, and adopt the other courtesies and rules common to public or national wars.

"A civil war," says Vattel, breaks the bands of society and government, or at least suspends their force and effect; it produces in the nation two independent parties, who consider each other as enemies and acknowledge no common judge. Those two parties, therefore, must necessarily be considered as constituting, at least for a time, two separate bodies, two distinct societies. Having no common superior to judge between them, they stand in precisely the same predicament as two nations who engage in a contest and have recourse to arms.

This being the case, it is very evident that the common laws of war -- those maxims of humanity, moderation, and honor -- ought to be observed by both parties in every civil war. Should the sovereign conceive he has a right to hang up his prisoners as rebels, the opposite party will make reprisals, &c., &c.; the war will become cruel, horrible, and every day more destructive to the nation.

As a civil war is never publicly proclaimed, eo nomine, against insurgents, its actual existence is a fact in our domestic history which the Court is bound to notice and to know.

....By the Constitution, Congress alone has the power to declare a national or foreign war. It cannot declare war against a State, or any number of States, by virtue of any clause in the Constitution. The Constitution confers on the President the whole Executive power. He is bound to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. He is Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States. He has no power to initiate or declare a war either against a foreign nation or a domestic State. But, by the Acts of Congress of February 28th, 1795, and 3d of March, 1807, he is authorized to called out the militia and use the military and naval forces of the United States in case of invasion by foreign nations and to suppress insurrection against the government of a State or of the United States.

...On this first question, therefore, we are of the opinion that the President had a right, jure belli, to institute a blockade of ports in possession of the States in rebellion which neutrals are bound to regard.

You're welcome to read the complete text of the Prize Cases at:

http://www.bus.miami.edu/~jmonroe/prize.htm

You don't know the history.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

The war came because the slave power resisted a peaceful settlement.

Nonsense. The war came because The Lincoln wouldn't have it any other way.

What about "his" amendment?

Lincoln bent over backwards to avoid war. What he wouldn't allow was the south to have their way in every jot and tittle. It was the south that determined on war.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

It's DiLorenzo that is doing the revision.

Evidence please. What facts in DiLorenzo's article do you dispute, Walt.

See 11-14, 16 and 38 in this thread.

Walt

[goodieD]

The Lincoln lovers are like the left, in that no matter how much truth you show them, they close their eyes, plug their ears, and keep on chanting the mantra "The civil war WAS about slavery, Lincoln was GOD!"

[WhiskeyPapa]

He says so himself - "I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause" etc.

It's that "etc" that is so damning of what DiLorenzo writes.

Walt

[goodieD]

Fair, as opposed to truthful...eh walt?

[GOPcapitalist]

What about "his" amendment?

It was political manuevering to frame the secession crisis in a way The Lincoln saw as favorable to his own cause. Eyewitness Henry Adams conceded as much.

[WhiskeyPapa]

The Supreme Court unanimously agreed that secession was outside the law in The Prize Cases (1862).

First of all, it was 1863. Secondly, it was not unanimous.

The Court was unanimous in saying that the acts and ordinances of secession had no operation in law. The Court split 5-4 on the question of who could prosecute the war, the president or Congress.

"The Supreme Court In the Prize Cases held, by happily a unanimous opinion, that acts of the States, whether secession ordinances, or in whatever form cast, could not be brought into the cases, as justifications for the war, and had no legal effect on the character of the war, or on the political status of territory or persons or property, and that the line of enemy's territory was a question of fact, depending upon the line of bayonets of an actual war.

The rule in the Prize Causes has been steadily followed in the Supreme Court since, and in the Circuit Courts, without an intimation of a doubt. That the law making and executive departments have treated this secession and war as treason, is matter of history, as well as is the action of the people in the highest sanction of war. It cannot be doubted that the Circuit Court at the trial will instruct the jury, in conformity with these decisions, that the late attempt to establish and sustain by war an independent empire within the United States was treason."

-- Richard H. Dana U.S. Attorney, 1868

You don't know the history.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Thirdly, the "Prize Cases" decided nothing about secession and made no attempt to.

Justice Grier quotes the Militia Act, which requires that U.S. law operate in all the states.

Shoehorn secession into that.

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

Lincoln bent over backwards to avoid war. What he wouldn't allow was the south to have their way in every jot and tittle.

If that is true, he should have been content with secession. Had he let the south go peacefully, he could have gotten everything that you allege he wanted - no slavery in the territories. When the south left, they left the territories behind. Lincoln could have left it at that kept them all for exactly what he wanted according to his speeches - land exclusively for "free white men" to remove to.

As usual, your argument, Walt, violates the obvious. If Lincoln's bedrock position was keeping the territories slave free, there was no better way to achieve that than to let the south voluntarily exclude itself from those very same territories. Secession did exactly that, yet The Lincoln would have none of it. It was the south that determined on war.