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The Real Lincoln by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Reviewed by Theresa Fritz Camoriano

Thomas DiLorenzo is a professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland, specializing in economic history and political economy.  This book provides a view of Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant, who jailed people who disagreed with him, including 13,000 Northerners, and who closed down many dissenting Northern newspapers.  Lincoln was willing to kill over 600,000 Americans and ignore the civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution, in order to subjugate the states to the power of the federal government, which he believed was necessary for the success of his "American Plan" of high import duties and corporate welfare.  This book is very well-documented, and well-supported, including 34 pages of footnotes.

DiLorenzo dispels the myth that the North was staunchly against slavery and supported the Civil War for that reason, showing that, while there was "a vigorous abolitionist movement in the North", it was a very small movement, and no abolitionist was ever elected to any major political office in any Northern state.  "The overwhelming majority of white Northerners cared little about the welfare of the slaves and treated the blacks who lived among them with contempt, ridicule, discrimination, and sometimes violence."  Many Northern states prohibited black suffrage and prohibited the emigration of blacks into the state.  Northern labor unions "did not accept black members and vigorously opposed abolition".  Lincoln considered blacks to be an inferior race and supported sending them to Liberia or Haiti.  The book points out that the Emancipation Proclamation arrived fully 18 months after the beginning of the war, when Lincoln was desperate and feared that England might join in support of the South.  The Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave, since it only purported to free slaves in territory that was not controlled by the North, preserving slavery in Northern states and even in Southern areas such as New Orleans that were controlled by the North.  However, it was a very astute public relations coup for Lincoln and made it politically unacceptable for England to support the South's war effort.

DiLorenzo also shows that the idea of the right of a state to secede from the Union was well-accepted prior to the Civil War.  In fact, the New England Federalists made three serious attempts at secession more than 50 years before the Civil War.  There was debate for fourteen years about the wisdom of secession but never about the inherent right of secession.  He documents many Northern newspapers that were opposed to the use of force against any state that might secede.  Even New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, on November 9, 1860, wrote "We hope never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets."  At the constitutional convention, there had been a proposal to allow the federal government to "suppress a seceding state", but James Madison opposed it, saying "The use of force against a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound." Even Alexander Hamilton, who had always supported a powerful central government, had adamantly opposed the use of force to prevent secession.  Also, several states expressly reserved the right to secede before adopting the Constitution.  Even Lincoln himself had described secession as a "sacred right" in 1848.

What surprised me the most in the book was the fact that Lincoln had essentially become a dictator even in the North, and even prior to the war.  Lincoln suspended "the writ of habeas corpus for the duration of his administration; imprisoning without trial thousands of Northern citizens; arresting and imprisoning newspaper publishers who were critical of him; censoring all telegraph communication; nationalizing the railroads; creating several new states without the consent of the citizens of those states; ordering Federal troops to interfere with elections in the North by intimidating Democratic voters; deporting a member of Congress, Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio, for criticizing the administration's income tax proposal at a Democratic Party rally; confiscating private property; confiscating firearms in violation of the Second Amendment; and effectively gutting the Ninth and Tenth amendments to the Constitution, among other things."  He even imprisoned Francis Key Howard in Fort McHenry, "the very spot where his grandfather composed 'The Star Spangled Banner', after the newspaper he edited criticized Lincoln's decision to invade the South without the consent of Congress and his suppression of civil liberties in Maryland."  Howard later wrote a book about his two years spent in a military prison without being charged and "without a trial of any kind." 

DiLorenzo also documents the real reasons the Southerners wanted to secede.  The South had been protesting protectionist tariffs since 1824.  "Southerners ended up paying the lion's share of all federal taxes (more than 90 percent of federal tax revenue came from tariffs at that time), since they relied so heavily on foreign trade, while most federal spending was occurring in the North."  These taxes were collected primarily from the South and spent primarily for the benefit of well-connected Northern manufacturers.  Even before the tariff rates were doubled by the Republicans at about the time Lincoln took office, "Southerners were paying about 87 percent of all federal taxes, even though they had less than half the population of the North."  To Lincoln, slavery was negotiable, but protectionist tariffs and corporate welfare were at the heart of his program and were not negotiable.  In his first address after his election, he threatened a war on his own people over the issue of tax collection.  Doubling the already burdensome tariffs simply was unbearable for the South.

The Southerners were ardent free traders and outlawed protectionist tariffs in their Constitution.  Free trade in the South would have destroyed Lincoln's economic plan, because European manufacturers would have shipped their goods through Southern ports, making their goods much cheaper in American markets and avoiding the payment of the huge import taxes.  This simply was not acceptable to Lincoln and the Republicans.  Many Northern newspapers admitted that ending the plunder of the South would threaten the benefits that had been enjoyed by the North.  The Daily Chicago Times wrote that the tariffs "compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually."  It warned that, if the South adopted free trade, the North's "commerce must be reduced to less than half what it now is."  The Newark Daily Advertiser advised that the South wanted to pursue free trade and must be stopped by "the closing of the ports" by military force.  Some Northern papers advocated that the North also adopt a policy of free trade, but Lincoln and the Republicans could not accept that policy, because it would prevent them from being able to grant special privileges to their friends in order to remain in power.

Of course, we all know to some extent the brutal destruction that was waged by the North in the South, burning homes to the ground and laying waste to large swaths of territory in Sherman's "march to the sea".  DiLorenzo points out that the war killed "620,000 young men, including one-fourth of all the white males in the South between twenty and forty years of age."  At today's population, that would be equivalent to 5 million American deaths.  Also, it has been estimated that "more than 50,000 Southern civilians perished during the war, and this number...has to include thousands of slaves."  He also points out that the policies during Reconstruction created animosity between the races that should never have occurred.

DiLorenzo says that, had the South been allowed to live in peace, both republics could have coexisted peacefully and might even have reunited, with the central government maintaining a proper respect for the rights of the states.  There would not have been "anarchy" or the destruction of democratic government as stated by Lincoln.  In fact, the Constitution of the South was even more protective of liberty than the U.S. Constitution, severely restricting the government's ability to raise taxes and prohibiting corporate welfare.  He also points out that there would have been many better ways to end slavery, as many other countries ended slavery without war.  If the Northern states had not honored the Fugitive Slave Act, the territory of slavery would gradually have shrunk, eventually causing the institution to die out.  In any event, technology, including agricultural machines, was making slavery less viable.  "During the nineteenth century dozens of countries throughout the world, including the British Empire, ended slavery peacefully through compensated emancipation." DiLorenzo asks, "Why didn't America do what every other nation on earth did with regard to slavery during the first sixty years of the nineteenth century and end it peacefully?"

I am certain that none of us learned this version of Lincoln and the Civil War when we were being educated in government-controlled schools.  While it is wise to read this or any other book with a healthy dose of skepticism, this book is very likely to change your perspective on the Civil War.  I highly recommend it.

See additional commentary by DiLorenzo

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