READ THIS! (WARNING..PARADIGM SHIFT AHEAD!)

SEE WITH NEW EYES!

“I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man."…. Abraham Lincoln from a speech delivered in Charleston, Illinois in 1858.

I grew up in Illinois. It never entered my mind to question that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest president in history. He was the Great Emancipator. He had a national holiday and a monument in Washington, D.C. in tribute to his heroism and martyrdom. He was legend….

But....what if? What if most everything we know about Lincoln is false?

What if Lincoln was a calculating politician with a much broader agenda...a president who waged the single bloodiest war in American history in order to accomplish that agenda?

What if the sixteenth president was a man whose entire political career was devoted to transforming the American form of government ( limited in scope and highly decentralized) to a highly centralized state?

Author, Thomas DiLorenzo, an economist, through detailed and meticulous research, shows a different Abraham Lincoln. He reveals that Lincoln's main interest was not in eliminating slavery but in advancing “mercantilism, inflationism, and government spending: the "American system" (taxpayer subsidies for railroads and corporations and infrastructure improvements) of Henry Clay".

According to DiLorenzo, “ the high tariff pushed by Northern industries, at the expense of Southern agriculture, was the main cause of the sectional conflict. Further, Lincoln's goal in preventing Southern secession was the consolidation of federal power and the collection of revenue, not the elimination of slavery.”

Did you know….. in THE NORTH, Lincoln:
- launched a military invasion without the consent of Congress;
- suspended habeas corpus;
-imprisoned thousands of Northern citizens without trial for merely opposing his policies;
- censored all telegraph communication and imprisoned dozens of opposition newspaper publishers;
- nationalized the railroads;
- used Federal troops to interfere with elections;
-confiscated firearms;
- deported an opposition member of Congress after he opposed Lincoln’s income tax proposal during a Democratic Party rally in Ohio.
- had Southern men executed and imprisoned for refusing to take a loyalty oath to the Lincoln government.
-“ declared all secessionists and peace advocates to be ‘traitors’ who were undeserving of the protection of federal laws. This definition also applied to virtually anyone in the North who opposed Lincoln on matters of policy….”

He was a strong believer in the Hamiltonian political tradition, which sought a highly centralized governmental system. This centralized system would plan economic development with corporate subsidies financed by protectionist tariffs and would have the power to print money through a nationalized bank.

The South, with its independent states, its resistance to the national government, and its reliance on unrestricted free trade was in the way of this goal. In order to proceed Lincoln subverted the Constitution, trampled states' rights, and launched a devastating Civil War, the effects of which are still with us today.

DiLorenzo observes, “ that any study of the American state should begin no earlier than 1865. That’s because Lincoln’s policies virtually wiped out the previous 70 years of America’s highly decentralized, limited government existence.”

DiLorenzo uses extensive footnotes in his book to back his claims. There is also a chapter discussing the long history of the right of secession in America. Lincoln’s assertion that no such right ever existed and that the federal government created the states is thoroughly discounted.

Abraham Lincoln’s war led to 620,000 deaths and the destruction of 40 percent of the American economy to centralize power in Washington. The independence of the states was sacrificed to the supremacy of the federal government, which continues as an issue of prime concern today.

THE REAL LINCOLN: A New Look At Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War was, for me, a despairing read. I found myself resistant at first. But then I became angry. I think this man, his party, and his policies hurt us badly as a nation. I will never see Abraham Lincoln, The Civil War, or American history in the same way. Eye scale peeling.... always an exceedingly painful process.....