The books
May 4th, 2005I confess right up front that this is, in part, shameless whoring for money. I set up an Amazon associate account because I figured that if I’m going to be using this pulpit to influence the reading habits of my millions thousands hundreds half dozen regular readers, I should at least get paid if they decide to buy from Amazon.
A couple of you have asked where I’m getting my information about Lincoln. I’ve gotten it from numerous places over the years to put together the composite image of Lincoln I’m presenting here but I must confess that the bulk of it came from Thomas DiLorenzo’s book The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War
Serena also mentioned The South Was Right!
A third that I’ve been wanting to read on this subject is When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession
Now clickety-click and make me rich! If everyone that reads this post clicks through those links and buys a couple hundred copies of each book, I’ll probably make enough to cover my hosting bill this month.
Capitalist pig. You’re just trying to make some profit off of the legacy of slavery.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
What’s worse, I’m not the slightest bit ashamed.
Are you here to click and buy or just to criticize?
Thanks for the info. I’ve heard pieces of this before, but never all of it. Plus I’m in college so I figured it was just Republican hatred. :) I bookmarked you and will be cominb back! Thank you
Are you here to click and buy or just to criticize?
No, I’m just ragging on you because I didn’t think of it first.
Well, I’m more likely to check the book out at the library or visit my local Barnes & Noble, Borders, or Davis-Kidd. But thanks for the titles!
I’m not the biggest reader of anything outside the net, but that book The South Was Right! just might persuade me to purchase… well, sometime this year. I definitely have to read that before I consider any international touring down the road. I’ve never been outside Australia, but I think the American South might be my first port of call.
You always have a place to stay in North Texas, Jamie.
It ain’t much, but you’re always welcome here.
Alli at Fox rants turned me on to your site. Lincoln was not the first or last preseident to get into office by scurrilous means. Make no doubt George Washington politiced for his job. Much of what Lincoln did was wrong, but in the end saving the union was the most important duty. The Rebublican Party was the party of Big Government until the turn of the century when the Democrats moved to the Left and The Rebublicans moved to the Right.
The South was Right! Good book.
I’m not a fan of Lincoln.
Well, darlin’, if I get a job in the South as I hope to do, I’ll have to buy those books. ;)
Regarding “The Real Lincoln” book by DiLorenzo, you may wish to be aware of this book review at The Independent:
http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=14&articleID=79
Good review. Some excerpts:
“Yet Thomas J. DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln manages to raise fresh and morally probing questions, challenging the image of the martyred president that has been fashioned carefully in marble and bronze, sentimentalism and myth.”
“He writes primarily not as a defender of the Old South and its institutions, culture, and traditions, but as a libertarian enemy of the Leviathan state. ”
and also
“Despite its provocative insights and obvious rhetorical skill, however, The Real Lincoln is seriously compromised by careless errors of fact, misuse of sources, and faulty documentation. Although individually these flaws may seem trivial and inconsequential, taken together they constitute a near-fatal threat to DiLorenzo’s credibility as a historian.”
The last paragraph of the review, in summary:
“As it stands, The Real Lincoln is a travesty of historical method and documentation. Exasperating, maddening, and deeply disappointing, The Real Lincoln ought to have been a book to confound Lincoln’s apologists and to help rebuild the American historical consciousness. Ironically, it is essentially correct in every charge it makes against Lincoln, making it all the more frustrating to the sympathetic reader. DiLorenzo’s love of the chase needs to be tempered by scrupulous attention to detail. Without it, his good work collapses. He is an author of evident courage and ability, but his sloppiness has earned him the abuse and ridicule of his critics. A book such as The Real Lincoln needed to be written, but until it is revised and corrected in a new edition, this is not that book. In the meantime, there is still hope for skeptical cynics.”
I admit to being disappointed after reading the review, because in the midst of all the “he said she said” about history and Lincoln and the war, it would be nice to have a single completely factual, error-free book of reference. An error here or there is acceptable in a lengthy scholarly work, but not this many. I may read it to get the general point of view, but I guess I wouldn’t feel comfortable recommending it to others as a resource above others.
Seems like an interesting book, overall, and I know Lincoln was not as lily white as the schoolchildren are lead to believe. I just wish that is was a better book. So let’s hope that Mr. DiLorenzo publishes a revised and corrected version soon.
Also check out this debate transcript between DiLorenzo and Harry Jaffa, debating The Real Lincoln.
http://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?eventID=9
You may have already mentioned this one, DC, but if you needed another reason to hate Lincoln….INCOME TAX!
1861
In July 1861, the Congress passed a 3% tax on all net income above $600 a year (about $10,000 today). However, no revenue was ever raised because a second tax passed before the first was due (on June 30, 1862). The war’s demand on resources made the earlier tax ineffective, and the sale of bonds could not keep up with the expenditures of the administration and the armies. In March, the Congress passed an income tax of 3% on annual incomes of $600 to $10,000 and 5% on incomes from $10,000 to $50,000 and threw in a small inheritance tax too. Lincoln signed the bill on July 1, 1862 to take effect a month later. The Union debt then stood at $505 million.[2] This tax also included the first appearance of withholding and was applied to federal salaries and on interest and dividends.[3]
In 1863, Congress then passed a special 5% tax on incomes above $600 to pay for an army recruitment program that would pay men $2 per recruit and pay recruit’s their first month’s pay in advance.[4]
In mid-1864, the rates were raised again. The 3% tax on incomes above $600 was increased to 5%, a new 7.5% rate was introduced on incomes over $5,000, and the old rate of 5% on incomes above $10,000 was raised to 10%. The tax on interest and dividends was also raised from 3% to 5%.
And for the first time, with the changes, Americans now had to swear to the veracity of their tax returns, and government assessors could now challenge a return. The penalty for not filing a tax return was likewise doubled to 10%.[5]
At first, the income tax raised comparatively little revenue in relation to the war’s demand for it. Harvesting only $2.7 million in 1862–1863, by the next year, the tax pulled in $20.2 million. And believing that many large-income earners were eluding the taxman, Congress raised the rate on incomes over $5,000 to 10% and gave the assessors the power to estimate income and increased the penalties for noncompliance, from fines of 25% to double that for filing fraudulent returns. By 1866, 30% of federal revenues derived from the income tax totaling $73 million, and derived primarily from just three states, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
In a move to increase compliance and the veracity of returns, the government even made tax returns available to the press. This practice was outlawed in 1870.[6]
The Confederacy also experimented with a progressive income tax, eventually imposing a tax in kind that further destroyed the already ruptured and blockaded economy of the South.[7]
1865
After the war ended, the income tax continued on to pay the government’s gigantic debt, but resistance was building. In 1867, progressing rates were replaced with a flat tax of 5% on all incomes above $1000 a year. However, the penalty for failure to file was raised to 50% and the payment date was moved from June 30 to April 30.[8]
This income tax expired in 1870 and was replaced with a 2.5% tax on incomes above $2,000. Finally, when that law expired in 1872, the United States was again without an income tax.
In the post-war years, a booming economy produced tariff surpluses for decades, but this didn’t deter many attempts to reintroduce an income tax, with members of Congress introducing sixty-eight bills to do so between 1874 and 1894.
BTW, I have The South Was Right, and it is an excellent book!
The South Was Right was good – at least the first half of it. I haven’t read the second half yet. They do have an agenda in that they want the South to rise again, however the information they present is very illuminating.