Clyde Wilson, Abbeville Institute:
There has always been a minority who have questioned the folklore (about Abraham Lincoln). They have pointed out that Lincoln was a wealthy corporation lawyer and a crafty and pathologically ambitious politician, who had an ambiguous and opportunistic relationship to slavery and Christianity. Who carried out a cruel war of invasion and conquest against other Americans, countenancing total war against civilians. Who caused a war that he thought would give him a short and easy victory but led to the greatest bloodbath in American history. Who turned loose the slaves without any interest in their survival or progress. Who installed the rule of Big Business in U.S. affairs. And who violently changed the American regime from a Union into a centralized empire.
There are some, like George Will and James McPherson, who admit that Lincoln made a revolutionary change in our country but praise that as a good thing. But many of us who are dissatisfied with living in a decaying American empire think that Lincoln’s revolution is the key to many of today’s ills and that Americans must obtain a realistic view of his history in order to recover a healthy course.
Lincoln had utter contempt for several aspects of the constitution, he threw masses of people in jail that spoke out against the war effectively suspending the 1st amendment and habeas corpus. And instead of paying off the slavers (an approach that worked to abolish slavery in the British Empire), he instead waged a war forcing millions into conscription and killing masses of people, including the Camp Douglas concentration camp for confederate soldiers. All the while supporting white supremacy claiming that blacks were inferior to whites and should not have equal rights and condoning massacres of Native Americans.
You are right, Fred. Clyde Wilson’s article– linked in the post– has an entire paragraph listing all the books that have been written on this topic.
Well said. Those who after the fact claim that Lincoln’s War was about slavery (which he at least never did) should confront that Lincoln pursued the war with a slave (conscripted) army. And of course, he imprisoned political opponents (editors especially) who disagreed with that course. He was about as anti-libertarian as you could get.
Healey, I have come to the awareness over the last 10 years or so that some of the history we were presented during our early years is not entirely accurate. Lincoln experienced a great whitewash of all the ill deeds he committed.