Southern apologists have long tried to deny the true motivation behind the Confederacy, and the true motivation behind Lincoln's desire to keep the Union intact. DiLorenzo offers them some interesting fodder for their cannons, but unfortunately for them, no balls.
There's no denying DiLorenzo's unbelievable distortion of Lincoln's own words when he says, "Eliminating every last black person from American soil, Lincoln proclaimed, would be 'a glorious consummation.'"
Here, for the record, are Lincoln's exact words, in full context:
"If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery; and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost father-land, with bright prospects for the future; and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation."
Hardly the inflammatory remarks DiLorenzo so desperately creates out of thin air.
Sure, Lincoln's deification at the hands of a mediocre history education is lamentable, but this in no way makes Lincoln less than a great man. Learning about his flaws humanizes him and makes him accessible. This is not worship at the altar of Lincoln, it is merely respect for his manhood.
The truth that you won't hear from the twisted and somewhat rabid form of libertarianism that pervades these reviews is that the strong central government had been long established by the time Lincoln moved to Washington in 1861. For good or ill, the anti-federalists lost. But their enduring legacy was the nagging cancer of slavery that they left unaddressed for a later generation to sort out.
As I said at the beginning, Southern apologists are always looking for new ways to deny the true motivation behind the secession of the Southern states. First, they say it's states' rights (that pro-slavery forces repeatedly and violently fought against popular sovreignty when it didn't work out in their favor is an irony somehow lost in these discussions), then it's "those industrialized yankees" trying to take over the Southern agricultural economy. Next, it will probably be that they wanted to secede so they could get back to nature and live like the Native Americans.
But why not go to the source - the Declarations of Secession by the states themselves, blasphemous and hideous caricatures of the Decalaration of Independence that they are.
SOUTH CAROLINA: "The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made."
SC claims that it would not have joined the Union in the first place if residents couldn't be secure in their, ahem, "property". SC even identifies its allies in this struggle as "the other slaveholding states" in the opening paragraph. Funny way for identifying the guys you're fighting alongside of for "states' rights".
MISSISSIPPI: "In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin."
Gosh, no beating around the bush for them. This is the OPENING PARAGRAPH. Where's the part about states' rights?
ALABAMA: "Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama... "
You get the idea. "Domestic institutions" by the way, means slavery. I'm sure DiLorenzo's minions will find a way to distort that, but it's true. Later on, Alabama refers to its brothers-in-arms as "the slaveholding States". Again, if states' rights are mentioned at all, they are merely used as a smokescreen, just as they are today by politicos of all stripes, to justify a less honorable end.
Getting the picture?
Look, there's nothing wrong with a strong desire to go back to a less centralized government. Heck, you'd probably get a lot of people in this country to agree with you. But let's educate them in a more responsible way. Let's not lay the blame on Lincoln for something that was finished by the time Andrew Jackson was hosting public parties on the White House lawn (and arguably by the time the ink was dry on the Treaty of Paris). It's time for the apologist South to get over itself, lose that stupid god-awful flag, and humbly join the civilized world.
