Summary and Comments on Chapter 1 of Thomas DiLorenzo's "The Real Lincoln"

The Lincoln Myth Versus Lincoln Reality

DiLorenzo believes that “much of what has been written about Lincoln is myth,” and he also feels that “the literature on Lincoln has become even more dubious” since the 1960s.¹ He strongly dislikes what he calls the “entire industry of ‘Lincoln scholars’” because these “Lincoln scholars” “perpetuate countless myths and questionable interpretations of events.”² In addition, these “Lincoln scholars” act like censors who protect Lincoln’s reputation by filtering the information that gets to the “average American.”³ Therefore, I am not surprised that DiLorenzo sees his book as an attempt to overthrow these “Lincoln scholar” myths so that the “average American” (or in my case, “the average Canadian”) gets to know the truth about Lincoln and the War between the States (i.e. the Civil War). DiLorenzo, I think, sees himself as an iconoclast who is standing up to and tearing down the established orthodoxy.

The main thesis of DiLorenzo’s book is that Lincoln wanted to transform the United States into a British style “mercantilist” country but first he had to overcome all sorts of obstacles and impediments that were blocking his mercantilist dream. The entire book is basically DiLorenzo describing how Lincoln circumvented, destroyed, crushed, or eliminated all obstacles that were in his way. As an economist from the Austrian School of Economics, a school heavily influenced by classical liberalism and free market economics, DiLorenzo predictably denounces Lincoln’s mercantilism (also known as Henry Clay’s “American System”). This system called for “protectionist tariffs, taxpayer subsidies for railroads and other corporations (‘internal improvements’), and the nationalization of the money supply to help pay for the subsidies.”⁴ (Economists from the Austrian School want the exact opposite. They want international trade to be free, privately funded railroads, the elimination of all subsidies to private businesses, and a new monetary system that probably will be privately issued and backed by gold). Given DiLorenzo’s background, his unequivocal rejection of the “American System” makes a lot of sense.

As mentioned above, the rest of the book is DiLorenzo going through a long list of obstacles to the adoption of mercantilism in America and how Lincoln and the Republican Party overcame all of those obstacles. The obstacles to mercantilism in America were:

• people including black people, Plains Indians, and Southern statesmen

• the Constitution of the United States

• the right of secession

• state sovereignty

• federalism

• international law, the Geneva Convention, and the rules of war

Eliminating Black People, Plains Indians, and Southern Statesmen; the Constitution Blocked the Mercantilist “American System”

According to DiLorenzo, Abraham Lincoln was like a communist dictator who engaged in “purges” of his political opponents.

With regard to black people, Lincoln wanted to kick them all out of the country. Lincoln attempted to “colonize all American blacks in Africa, Haiti, Central America—anywhere but in the United States.”⁵ Like most Northerners, Lincoln wanted to prevent blacks from moving to northern states:

Lincoln’s views on race were consistent with those of the overwhelming majority of white Northerners, who discriminated against free blacks so severely that several states, including Lincoln’s home state of Illinois, amended their constitutions to prohibit the emigration of black people into those states.⁶

Finally, Lincoln’s Republican Party used black people as “political pawns” during the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877) so that they could plunder the South over twelve years. “Much of the money was simply stolen by Republican Party activists and their business supporters.”⁷

The Republican Party was heavily supported by the railroad industry. “Railroad and banking lobbyists and protectionist manufacturers were especially influential, having been among the core supporters of the Republican Party from the very beginning of its existence.”⁸ According to DiLorenzo, the Plains Indians got in the way of the building of the government-subsidized transcontinental railroads so they too had to be eliminated:

Lincoln’s policy of crushing dissenters with overwhelming military might was continued after the war with the federal government’s eradication of the Plains Indians by many of the same generals who had guided the North’s war effort (particularly Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan). The stated purpose of this campaign against the Plains Indians was to make way for the government-subsidized transcontinental railroads. The quest for empire had become the primary goal of government in America.⁹

Finally, Southern statesmen were continuously blocking efforts to implement the mercantilist American System in the United States so they also had to be eliminated:

Lincoln labored mightily in the political trenches of the Whig and Republican parties for nearly three decades on behalf of this economic agenda, but with only minor success. The Constitution stood in the way of the Whig economic agenda as one American president after another vetoed internal improvement and national bank bills. Beginning with Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, Southern statesmen were always in the forefront of the opposition to this economic agenda. According to Lincoln scholar Mark Neely, Jr., Lincoln seethed in frustration for many years over how the Constitution stood in the way of his political ambitions.¹⁰

Right of Secession, State Sovereignty and Federalism

For Thomas J. DiLorenzo, the right of secession is a self-evident fact of American history. “Until 1861 most commentators, North and South, took it for granted that states had a right to secede.”¹¹ DiLorenzo cites numerous examples to support his case. He mentions the Declaration of Independence and says that it should properly be viewed as the “Declaration of Secession” from England.¹² He also points out that this doctrine was “taught to the cadets at West Point, including almost all of the top military commanders on both sides of the conflict during the War between the States.”¹³ DiLorenzo also seems to be, I suspect, complaining about the double standard typically applied to the issue of the right of secession. The argument is fairly straightforward. Northerners repeatedly claimed a right to secession, so if Northerners are allowed to secede then Southerners should also be allowed to secede. He somewhat dwells on the fact that “New England Federalists attempted for more than a decade to secede from the Union after Thomas Jefferson was elected president in 1800.”¹⁴ A final example, found much later in DiLorenzo’s book, is the example of abolitionists who called for the North to secede. “Northern abolitionists had been arguing since the 1830s that the Northern states should secede from the Union and not be associated with slaveowning states.”¹⁵ DiLorenzo thinks that

Garrison’s advocacy of Northern secession was brilliant. The Northern states would no longer have had the Fugitive Slave Law, which would have dramatically increased the costs of returning runaway slaves, if indeed they could have been returned at all. Northern citizens would no longer have been compelled to assist in returning runaway slaves, and Northern courts would not have had to condone doing so. Consequently, the underground railroad would probably have led tens of thousands or more slaves to freedom per year, instead of just one thousand a year, and would have broken the back of slavery.¹⁶

However, according to DiLorenzo, Lincoln insisted that “no such right existed” and he “invented a new theory—that the federal government created the states, which were therefore not sovereign.”¹⁷ DiLorenzo’s rebuttal argument links federalism to state sovereignty and state sovereignty to the right of secession:

The federal government will never check its own power. That is the whole reason for federalism and the reason the founding fathers adopted a federal system of government. There is no check at all on the federal government unless state sovereignty exists, and state sovereignty is itself meaningless without the right of secession. Thus Lincoln’s war, by destroying the right of secession, also destroyed the last check on the potentially tyrannical powers of the central state.¹⁸

International Law, the Geneva Convention, and the Rules of War

For me, this part of DiLorenzo’s book is the most disturbing because it deals with the topic of rape committed by Federal soldiers:

Although it is oddly missing from most histories of Sherman’s March, many eyewitness accounts of rape by Federal soldiers have been recorded. Many accounts emphasize that black women suffered the most and that many black men, in response, became just as bitterly opposed to the Federal army as any secessionist was. Civilized people do not publicize the names of rape victims, so we will never know the extent to which Sherman’s army committed acts of rape. But the University of South Carolina library in Columbia, South Carolina, contains a large collection of letters and diaries of South Carolinians who wrote of their experiences during the war and Reconstruction. This collection contains hundreds of personal accounts of rape at the hands of Sherman’s army.¹⁹

This passage is from much later in the book (remember, I am simply reviewing the introductory chapter, chapter 1, in this article). The reason why I jump ahead to Chapter 7 is because DiLorenzo’s description in chapter 1 strikes me as “legalistic” and so I think he understates the horrific nature of this section of his book. In this introductory chapter, DiLorenzo tells us that Lincoln and the Republicans abandoned “international law and the accepted moral code of civilized societies” when they abandoned the recently codified “Geneva Convention of 1863.”²⁰ Again, this all sounds very “legalistic” to me. What DiLorenzo actually means is that they were war criminals because they:

• attacked noncombatants²¹ including women, children, and old men²²

• bombarded cities under siege²³

• blockaded Southern ports and blocked the importation of drugs and medicines²⁴

• burned hundreds of Southern churches²⁵

• pillaged and plundered civilian property²⁶

Concluding Remarks

According to DiLorenzo’s interpretation, Abraham Lincoln was a lawless criminal who violated all relevant legal constraints so that he could impose his British inspired mercantilist system on the United States.

1. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 1.

2. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 1-2.

3. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 3.

4. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 2.

5. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 3-4.

6. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 4.

7. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 7.

8. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 226.

9. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 7.

10. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 2-3.

11. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 5.

12. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 5.

13. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 5.

14. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 5.

15. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 106, 110.

16. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 110.

17. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 5.

18. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 267.

19. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 188.

20. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 6.

21. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 198.

22. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 194.

23. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 186.

24. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 180.

25. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 180.

26. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), 179.