Thomas DiLorenzo

[dawna]

In the spirit of historical understanding, I am coming to Thomas DiLorenzo's defense, if only because I admire any man who finds the courage to dust off a revered, historical figure and present him/her in a different light. Mr. DiLorenzo is not a stupid man, his books are well written, and although mistakes were made in "The Real Lincoln," they were corrected and the book was reprinted. These mistakes cannot be entirely directed at the author, nor can the thesis of the book be completely discounted because of this.

Thomas DiLorenzo raises compelling arguments in his book, although I understand that these are very disturbing to most Lincolnites. But they are at least worth discussion and an author who can make me challenge my ideals, resist my own desire to stay in a more comfortable zone, and encourage me to always seek historical truth, is at the very least, worth my consideration. My hope (and expectation) always is to be transported to the unexpected every time I pick up a novel, whether it is fiction or otherwise. Thomas DiLorenzo has challenged me in many ways.

Below is an article on "The Real Lincoln" written by Clyde Wilson, which I find interesting, apologizing in advance if it has been posted before:


DiLorenzo and His Critics

by Clyde Wilson

Professor DiLorenzo does not need any defense. He, along with Professor Joseph Stromberg and others, has exposed the ignorance and fanaticism of the critics to the satisfaction of any reasoning human. However, something more can be said about the Lincolnites, especially their egregious abuse and distortion of the nature and purposes of historical understanding.

One devotee of Lincoln hagiography, Professor Mackubin Thomas Owens, dismisses The Real Lincoln with the announcement that we need pay it no mind – its ideas were refuted fifty years ago by Professor Harry Jaffa. How comforting to know that the proper interpretation of the largest and most portentous event in American history, the War between the States, has already been settled. We don’t have to tire ourselves out any more examining evidence and thinking about the meaning of events.

However, I must demur at giving Jaffa the honors of discovering this forever valid truth. This wisdom was first given to us 125 years ago (1876) by Hermann E. von Holst in his eight volume history of the United States.

Holst was an imported Prussian, ensconced, appropriately enough, in Rockefeller’s University of Chicago. His view of the American founding and its alleged salvation by Lincoln anticipated Jaffa on almost every point.

Of course, like the Jaffaites, Holst knew absolutely nothing about American history before Lincoln, to which he devoted only a small portion of one volume. He knew nothing about English and American constitutional evolution, about the historical experience and ideas of the American people. What he did know was that the unitary state was righteous and inevitable. It was easy for him to proclaim that the great war of 1861–1865, the most violent and complex experience of the United States, was the necessary cleansing from the Americcan state of slavery and its defenders. Not because slavery violated equality but because it was a contradiction in the way of the perfection of the central state. Any resistance to the state could only be motivated by an evil like slavery, which he treated not as an analyzable human institution or a political issue but as a reified Hegelian antithesis. And his convenient ignorance of actual American history allowed him to dismiss states rights as a fiction, a made-up rationalization in defense of evil.

Professor Jaffa has been free in throwing out hints that opponents of his view are tainted with Nazism. In fact, it is more reasonable to argue that his views have their remote origins in the same state worship as Nazism. Except that the Straussians, who pose as defenders of democracy while appointing themselves as the "wise men" who are empowered to tell the rest of us rubes what everything really means, are guilty of an elitism that is more cynical than that of 20th century totalitarian movements, which at least claimed to believe in the people.

What is revealed by DiLorenzo’s attackers is their pathetically impoverished idea of the nature and uses of historical knowledge. It is, in fact, a rejection of the historical consciousness that John Lukacs has defined, rightly, as the hallmark of Western civilization.

What Professor Owens calls for is the end of the search for historical understanding. The eternal true understanding has already been achieved by his saint. It is fixed forever.

Thus, one does not have to search among the records of human acts and experience to find understanding. Professor Jaffa’s mystical contemplation of a few of Lincoln’s prettier speeches establishes all we need to know. We are to terminate our search for understanding of the immense and complex past of our species on this planet and defer to our betters. This is not only anti-intellectual. It is also a rejection of democracy, which is supposed to be exercised by free thought and deliberation. It is also, of course, atheist since it rejects the essential mystery of human existence and limitations of human knowledge.

To any serious historian of any breed, Professor Owens’s position is laughable. Historians are by definition aware that historical knowledge is never complete and conclusive, that there is always more to be found out and always more than one way to look at things. I have always thought that the most important aspect of history was that it can teach us to see that there is usually more than one side of a question, that sweeping claims to final truth are deceptive, that moral judgments should be made after, not before, examining the evidence. Thus we are made better, more savvy and less credulous citizens.

No serious historian of the War between the States pays much attention to Jaffa or his works. The prevailing interpretation now, which has changed before and will change again (unless the neocons are able to suppress all unofficial thought) is that Lincoln carried out a revolution not a salvation, a refounding not a preservation. One may like or dislike the revolution (most historians today like it), but there it is.

The Straussians, for whom the Jaffaites are the commandos, are tireless networkers and noisy disputants. They do most of their work on the "conservative" side of American discourse, which itself constitutes a tiny minority. They are loud frogs in a small pond, and those of us on the "conservative" side tend to over-estimate their importance. Most historians know Jaffa only from Crisis Of The House Divided which they vaguely remember from a graduate school reading list decades ago. Political philosophers are perhaps more aware of them, but it is my impression that most are either indifferent or hostile to the Straussian message and resentful of their ruthless networking and authoritarian style of argument.

Texts such as speeches of leading men and constitutional documents, are important but they don’t constitute all of history. History consists of all human actions, to which texts are only one guide. By reference to a few lines of a select few of Lincoln’s speeches, Professor DiLorenzo’s critics want to settle forever understanding of the War between the States which is the largest event in American experience in scale, casualties, and revolutionary impact.

How convenient when one can select the few documents out of thousands that contain the truth to be discerned by the elect. So Jaffa has been fond of comparing Lincoln’s paean to equality with a speech of Alexander Stephens, who became Vice-President of the Confederacy, as the defining text of the struggle of the Southern people for independence. Stephens is said to have declared that inequality, i.e., white supremacy, was the "cornerstone" of the Confederacy.

Set aside that this speech was an unofficial oration on the hustings and that the accuracy of the text is disputed and that Stephens was in several respects an eccentric figure. At face value this tells us that Stephens was a white supremacist. So what. Though Lincoln never made white supremacy a "cornerstone"; he, like 98 per cent of his voters (including most of the sincere antislavery people) and most Americans of several succeeding generations, was also a white supremacist. In fact, in one of the two forthrightly truthful statements in his public career, Lincoln remarked that "the Southern people are exactly what we would be in their situation."

And why does this particular document sum up the whole of the case for the Confederacy. Why can’t I, who actually know a fair amount about the context, make another selection. Something much more central and comparable to Lincoln’s speeches on critical occasions. How about Jefferson Davis’s first inaugural, in which he decalred to the world:

"Our present condition, acheived in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations, il****rates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established."





Or given my unfortunate limitations as a mere historian and not a seer, I might point to a sermon preached by the Revered James Henley Thornwell of South Carolina, one of the most respected churchmen in the South and a strong secessionist, upon the founding of the Confederate States. The Rev. Thornwell outlined and recommended as a necessary task a course of action that would lead to the eventual peaceful end of slavery.

It is a lot easier to win an argument when you are able to state your opponent’s case for him, which is the stock-in-trade of Straussian discourse.


An entirely different kind of criticism comes from Professor Tibor Machan in his "Lincoln, Secession, and Slavery," a criticism that deserves respectful consideration. As I understand it, Machan is interested in laying down a rationale for the right of secession. This is a worthy endeavor which needs much more work. I would recommend to him the writings of Professor Donald Livingston on this subject in various Mises Institute publications and elsewhere, and in a forthcoming book.

His position is that the right of secession is generally valid, but does not hold when the secessionists take with them "hostages," in which category Professor Machan places the slaves of the Southern states. Therefore the secession of the Southern states was not morally valid, and Lincoln was justified in refusing to allow it.

At the time when Lincoln inaugurated coercion against the seven seceding Southern states, there were (rounding off 1860 census figures) 1,387,000 slaves in the seceded states and 1,817,000 (or over 56 per cent of the total American slave population) still in the Union, including nearly 3,700 in the District of Columbia and 18 in New Jersey. It is hard to draw much of a moral to support military conquest of seceding states from that, especially as Lincoln had already declared that he had neither the right nor to desire to interfere with slavery in the states.

Professor Machan is not alone in working to clarify the condition upon which secession of a portion of a people from a larger state is justified. The subject has received a good deal of attention in recent years. Let me state what I perceive to be a fatal flaw in Professor Machan’s position and those of some other libertarian thinkers.

For them secession must meet certain pre-established moral criteria to be justified. But who, in fact, judges the criteria? If I have a right to secede only when you have determined that my motives are morally valid, Then I Have No Right At All. I must be the judge of my claim to self-government. Otherwise, of course, the central power will always conclude that my motives are not sufficiently moral. And the fact that there are "hostages" in my territory, if allowed to impede secession, would invalidate almost every independence movement in history, including the American Revolution, since almost every territory has antisecessionists or a minority ethnic group.

The right of secession is a technical form of the right to self-government, which is its own justification. Nobody put it better than Lincoln in his other true statement (1848): "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world."

Dr. Owen Wilson

[cash]

In the spirit of historical understanding, I am coming to Thomas DiLorenzo's defense, if only because I admire any man who finds the courage to dust off a revered, historical figure and present him/her in a different light.
---------------
Even if he does so dishonestly? Even if that different light is completely false?

Seeing "historical understanding" and "Thomas DiLorenzo" in the same sentence is pretty funny, though, since few people have contributed more to historical MISunderstanding than DiLorenzo.



Mr. DiLorenzo is not a stupid man,
---------------
No, he's not, but he's incompetent as an historical scholar and he's a liar.


his books are well written, and although mistakes were made in "The Real Lincoln," they were corrected and the book was reprinted. These mistakes cannot be entirely directed at the author,
----------------
He corrected some typos, which, after all, are his fault since he's the author, but he never corrected the lies that permeate the book, which are also his fault.



nor can the thesis of the book be completely discounted because of this.
-----------------
It can certainly be discounted because it's based on falsehoods, prevarications, and fabrications.



and encourage me to always seek historical truth,
------------------
What "historical truth" does DiLorenzo give you?


Below is an article on "The Real Lincoln" written by Clyde Wilson,
-------------------
Wilson is a founding member of the League of the South, which is an organization that seeks to have the southern states secede from the United States. He's hardly an unbiased observer.

"No serious historian of the War between the States pays much attention to Jaffa or his works."
--------
This is a lie. David H. Donald cites Jaffa's _Crisis of the House Divided_ in his biography of Lincoln. Allen Guelzo cites Jaffa in his book, _Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation._ Gabor Boritt cites Jaffa in his book, _The Lincoln Enigma._ William Lee Miller cited Jaffa in his book, _Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography._ In their magnificent bibliography of Civil War books, James G. Randall and David H. Donald praise Jaffa's work. James M. McPherson says Jaffa's _Crisis of the House Divided_ is "the most systematic analysis of the Lincoln-Douglas debates." [_Battle Cry of Freedom,_ p. 871] David M. Potter cites Jaffa in his book, _The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861._ Jaffa has two books in Michael Burkhimer's _100 Essential Lincoln Books._ _Crisis of the House Divided_ is number 48 and _A New Birth of Freedom_ is number 96. Plenty of serious historians of the Civil War pay a great deal of attention to Jaffa and his works.

By contrast, I don't know of a single serious historian of the Civil War who thinks Clyde Wilson or his works is worth a warm bucket of spit.

Seriously, Dawna, the way to learn history is to read books by real historians and to read the primary sources. Liars like DiLorenzo and Wilson, along with worthless websites like lewrockwell.com are nothing but wastes of time.

Regards,
Cash

[unionblue]

Dawna,

Time and time again, I have urged you to look to the source documents, to find sites that give the complete speeches or words of those persons involved in the war, who had an impact.

DiLorenzo is simply not a historian, not even a bad one. To reference his works as some sort of 'proof' concerning anything connected to the Civil War is to not be taken seriously in a quest of understanding the causes or history of that conflict.

I have shown you sites to where his work is critiqued and laid bare, and I could have shown you many more, but thought that would be enough to convince you. The man is simply a liar when it comes to history concerning the war and he aligns himself with other liars or persons who simply wish to advance their own 21st agenda at the expense of history. What he does is a crime to our children and United States history as it confuses what lessons could be learned and what past mistakes we could avoid if we had the facts, not the absolute fiction this 'man' presents.

It is a sin to lie, it is a crime against humanity to lie about history and to lie to our children and grandchildren is dispicable.

Unionblue

[ole]

Dawna, well said.

I, too, distrust the accepted, traditional view. My first reaction is, "yah....right!" I want to know how many blacks served in the Confederate Army as combatants. I want to know why the information is not given in the popular histories. I want to know exactly how many newspapers were suspended and for how long and why.

I want to know about DiLorenzo's scholarship and why you attribute to it more faith than any other reaction I've read on this board.

But, as we have seen on just this board, there is a division not unlike what the southern interests felt toward the north's. And vice versa. We individually and separately develop our 'thing" by however the mold in which we grew shaped our thoughts. But our particular desire for truth presupposes that our references are of the same mind. DiLorenzo doesn't meet the criteria.

I want to drop that foofoo (gotcha, censor) and get to the real thing, even if it injures my beliefs. I haven't read his work. From what I've derived from all the posts regarding his works, it would be a waste of time and monetary resources. Lest you think my mind is closed, I did obtain and intend to read the Kennedys' "The South Was Right." After all, if you don't know where they're coming from, how can you you know they're wrong.

But I digress. Your posts are thoughtful and honest. Even when they are misguided, they are worth serious consideration. My hat is doffed.
Ole

[dawna]

Neil:

"It is a sin to lie, it is a crime against humanity to lie about history and to lie to our children and grandchildren is dispicable." I completely agree with you Neil and and I place honesty above all other human virtues. I have read every source document and other reading materials that you've supplied in your postings, with much appreciation. I try to read a balance of material so that I always keep a open mind and I constantly have a stack of books waiting to be read, along with my own research which at times seems endless. I do not use Thomas Dilorenzo's books as my only source for research...far from it, but I do reserve the right to not have my sources dismissed as little more than annoying gnats.

Any time that I have quoted Thomas DiLorenzo it has been with the knowledge that the material I have provided has either been confirmed by another author or research material that I've come across. I find DiLoreenzo's arguments compelling and there are many critics Neil who do not feel that this author is a liar and deceiver of children. I am not suggesting that Thomas DiLorenzo should win a Pulitzer Prize for his historical endeavours, but neither am I dismissing his work as meaningless tripe with no credibility. Did any part of "The Real Lincoln" make you stop and think, if only for a moment, or is your belief that the book from front to back is a complete and utter falsehood?

It appears that we will remain in disagreement on the measure of Thomas DiLorenzo's credibility as an author/historian, but I hope that we will always respect each other's viewpoints.

Dawna

[cash]

Originally Posted by dawna

Did any part of "The Real Lincoln" make you stop and think, if only for a moment,

I was constantly thinking to myself, "How can anyone pack so many lies, half-truths, plucked-out-of-context statments, and total fabrications into one book?"

Regards,
Cash

[unionblue]

Ole,

Reading your above post leaves me with very mixed feelings concerning Dawna's position on DiLorenzo. First, let me assure you that my feelings on the writings of DiLorenzo that my division has nothing to do with the historical interests which caused the divisions between the North and the South.

There are many persons here on this board that I disagree with concerning those causes, i.e., Thea, Tommy, Bill, Hal, etc., but there is one thing that all these folks have in common when they have a debate with me concerning these disagreements; they don't use trash or lies, knowingly or unknowningly. My hardest fought debates here on this board has concerned the interpretation by these folks concerning historical documents, papers, diaries, letters and references made by serious, recognized historians.

I have learned much at these folks well-thought and well-presented presentations and even when tempers and emotions ran high, none of them ever presented a false fact or statement, but always presented documented sources I could check or find to verify their sources. I have even been forced by the light of some of those documented sources to admit a mistake or a wrong summation on my part.

My point is most of the debate enacted here on this board is usually always in part caused by the interpretation of historical source documentation.

I find your distrust of the accepted, traditional view, healthy and in a favorable light. There is nothing wrong with questioning the accepted view of things, to research for yourself, go through source material or find the documentation that a historian bases his conclusions on.

You said you have read the book, The South Was Right!, in order to know where the Kennedy brothers were coming from. GOOD! I have read The Real Lincoln by DiLorenzo and numerous articles and debates he posts on the web in order to do the same thing. You will note I never reference them unless asked by someone about a specific item in the books, and that I NEVER use either to support a debate or conclusion about the war. I CAN'T. They are not history nor are they works by scholars or serious historians. I had at one time found a site that listed some great arguments against the idea of secession of the South during the war and upon further checking, I discovered it was a LaRouche site that blamed England for everything wrong in the world from the dawn of time until the present, using every conspiracy theory and the British Crown known to man. No way would I use that site to 'prove' any of my debates here on the board as it would be stupid, non-historical and have no basis in historical fact, no matter how well presented it was.

While I agree with you that we all get to where we are in our opinions and views by our life experiences, background, education, etc., some of those who try to influence us along lifes path are not worth the expenditure of live, active brain cells. One reading of DiLorenzo is enough to make you feel resentful of time lost. I'm just glad I did not waste hard-earned money on buying his book, but read it at a library. I just felt cheated at wasting a part of my life and study time on a pack of lies, mistruth, misquotes and just poor research. I won't call it 'historical' research, as I doubt very much Prof. DiLorenzo has done any such thing during the writing of his book.

And yes, this hits me very hard and makes me angry. History is sacred to me. 'History teaches us to hope' the motto of this board is personal to me in that it means we can learn from our history, from our past mistakes, if they are presented in a true and accurate light. I have no problem with a difference of opinion based on accurate research. Tommy, Thea, Bill and Hall and I will more than likely NEVER agree on the causes of the Civil War and we have all looked at the same data, dates, speeches, documents, etc., and it doesn't really matter if we do or don't.

The point of the matter is, we don't lie to each other and we don't make history up out of thin air. Dawna's posts and opinions are truly valuable to me, her opinions. They are fresh, from a different view point and are thoughful and well laid out, when she makes them. Bill is the same way. He can be infuriating to me when he ask one, simple, well thought out question, but he deserves a well thought out answer because I am talking to him and his opinions, honestly arrived at.

But I cannot respect DiLorenzo nor his books, his conclusions nor his mistakes or his out of context remarks, because in my own heart, he is lying and knowingly doing so.

I apologize for the rant, Ole, but this man bothers me because in my opinion he is not being as honest or well researched as my fellow board members are. They at least have my respect, DiLorenzo never will.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[unionblue]

Dawna,

No part of DiLorenzo's book made me stop and think. It just made me mad.

Your sources are yours to choose, Dawna, no one will, to include myself, would ever think of denying you that choice.

It is just, in my own opinion, you could do much better, with so little effort.

My respect for you is not based on the writing of Thomas DiLorenzo, just my disagreement.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[thea_447]

Dawna,
I applaud you for being willing to put your neck in the noose for Di Lorenzo.
I believe I warned you some time back that his name goes over like a lead balloon on this board (or words to that effect.)

The thing that is utterly amazing to me is how upsetting it is to the Lincolnites on this board that you would even read his book. I didn't see you daring them to read anything they might find offensive. And whether they like or dislike your reading material is of no consequence in the long run. ALL seekers of history should read from all available materials, whether they find it disgusting or elevating.

In truth one of the reasons I love CivilWarTalk more than other war boards (WWII, etc.) is the very fact that most of it hinges on one person: Abraham Lincoln: Love him or Hate him. One person might think he saved a nation. Another believes wholeheartedly that he destroyed a new nation, with malice aforethought.

I can understand easily why Lincoln himself was loathe to put anything on paper; he constantly changed his mind. But Lincolnites don't want to believe that. Neil, I believe, has stated that Lincoln grew and indeed changed his mind about slavery, that it was an evil which needed to be destroyed. (Never mind that he would destroy the Southern people along with it....) But I digress.

So continue to seek history in any and all books. Pish posh to those who are upset by your choice of literature, they'll get over it. I know most of the more prolific writers on these boards pretty well and we are all in a constant state of flux. Opinions and debates wax and wane here, but there's just something about this war that keeps us all fascinated.

And as I've stated before I just wish they could bring me back in a hundred years so that I could see what world opinion of this war is in 2105!

When the dust has settled on your defense of Di Lorenzo I anxiously await your critique of any of the Kennedy Brothers books or Charles Adams. (Those guys literally raise the hackles on poor Neil!) Oh, and you'll get a healthy dose of "Read the Bible, McPherson!"

Good luck, my Canadian friend! You're going to need it. (And now I'm waiting for both small arms and heavy artillery to be aimed MY way! LOL)

[unionblue]

Dear Thea,

And who was the one who tipped you off to LewRockwell.com? I told you one day I would regret it.

Again, I find it somewhat amusing that McPherson can be ridiculed as being a 'government mouthpiece' solely based on the fact he has the gall to say that slavery was the cause of the war and yet when the charges leveled against him are answered with research, proof and historical documentation, it suddenly goes very quiet on this board.

I have also noticed how quiet it has gotten on the tariff thread, that when again, historical documentation is used to disprove the theory that tariffs had anything to do with the war, again, that the time lines just don't mesh with DiLorenzo or Adams or any of the other 'historians' of that 'style,' the thread goes quiet and no more debate is heard. I guess the same old reply to facts presented in the form of the answer, 'Because!' sounds a little thin after a while.

Yes, Thea, it frys my butt to think that anyone of intelligence would tear down an author of with good history credentials, like McPherson, would be torn down while hacks like Adams and DiLorenzo are admired and put forth as credible, but again, one should not be encouraged not to read them as one should build one's immunity to bad history and out and out misconceptions. The more I read of DiLorenzo the more angry I get. The more slavery gets excused and swept under a historical rug, the more I dispair.

You get angry at the lack of teaching going on in schools today, as do I. Both of us are in for severe disapointments as neither side of the history we hold most dear will be presented there. Instead, hacks like DiLorenzo and Adams will continue to spew their twisted agenda and we'll get more confused kids like Dan of not too long ago who will spout such nonsense as he wouldn't mind being a slave in the 1860's as it wasn't so bad a thing, that he would be happy and enjoy it. And it will be because we use such quaint terms like 'Lincolnites' and such to express just how silly an idea slavery and twisted versions of the history truly are.

It is one thing to openly debate on this board and have honest disagreements or to view history in a different light or interpretation based on documentation and historical facts. It is another to let slip by a work or works based on willful twisting of those facts or just out and out lies.

Forgive me Thea, any other time I can step back, take a deep breath and be more objective in my views. As I cannot on this subject, I will no longer post on this thread nor vent on Dawna, who is not the problem, nor are you.

Sincerely,
Neil