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John O
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The Latest New York Times Nonsense About Lincoln

- Tom DiLorenzo -

Jim C,

Everything about your passion for racial equality is admirable except for the passion, because it has blinded you to a simple fact, that there was at best a muddled distribution of sovereignty under the federal pact, but certainly no mechanism to prevent states from leaving the union, no matter what the cause. If you believe that "Jefferson's" Declaration of Independence--the one signed by slave states and free--should be "the guide for the future of the nation", should it guide us via the path of constitutionalism? If not, then you are taking us down the path of perpetual revolution, which certainly gets the blood flowing, so to speak, but has little else to recommend it. Lincoln's eschatological interpretation of the Constitution would have us governed by a "spirit" of the document, presumably to be interpreted and conjured by ideological witchdoctors instead of by rational thought and debate. Since both the Declaration and the Constitution were drafted chiefly by Southern statesmen and ratified by Southern assemblies, does it occur to you that there might be another side to the story?

When men like Lee and Jackson who were against both slavery and secession went with Virginia instead of the Union, could you check your passion for a moment long enough to consider the possibility that there was more to the situation than slavery? I know in this age, especially in the wake of 20th century genocide, discrimination and slavery are the unforgivable sins (unless you are a Founding Father, ironically), but it is possible that Lincoln's "One Nation Under God" and government of, by, and for the people was the prelude to ideologically driven genocide perpetrated by socialists and populists, rather than the traditional colonial exploitation that had been the hallmark of imperialism around the world up until the nineteenth century.

I remember what Schumpeter wrote half a century ago: "To exalt national unity into a moral precept spells acceptance of one of the most important principles of fascism." Lincoln was certainly a trailblazer in that respect. Under his guidance, tens of thousands of Americans were slaughtered and whole swathes of the continent were decimated. He completely distorted and broke the constitutional order that previous generations had fought and died for, and replaced it with a missionary passion that he then enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment. He also freed the slaves. If he had been able to achieve the latter two conditions without so much physical destruction and corruption of the Constitution, then we might compare him to Gandhi, but otherwise, he seems more like a Midwestern Napoleon, hard to hate and even worthy of admiration but hardly the kind of person one wants to dictate the constitutional order of a great nation.

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