Debating DiLorenzo: Lincoln, Secession, and Sumter

Here’s what Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo told Brian Lamb in 2008 about Lincoln, secession, and the Sumter crisis:

Debating DiLorenzo: Lincoln and Emancipation

In this excerpt from a 2008 interview with Brian Lamb, Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo addresses Lincoln and emancipation:

LAMB: Did Lincoln free the slaves?

DILORENZO: Well, the 13th amendment freed the slaves, to be sure. Lincoln late in his term did support the 13th amendment. And so when the states ratified the 13th amendment, that’s what freed the slaves.

The Sunday Question: The Coming of the Civil War

This Sunday question is yet another request for a book recommendation.  Which book would you recommend to someone as offering the best understanding of the coming of the Civil War, and why?

Debating DiLorenzo: Worshipping Lincoln and American Exceptionalism

In a 2008 interview with C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb, Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo had this to say about why people worship Lincoln:

LAMB: Why, from your perspective, do you think that people are deifying him unnecessarily?

DILORENZO: Well, there’s sort of an interesting history of that. After the war, after Lincoln was assassinated, the New England clergy began with the deification. I have in my files, in my research files, an old magazine article that has a picture of Abe Lincoln with angel’s wings ascending into the sky in an open tomb at the bottom of the picture and this was the sort of thing that went on in the immediate years after the Civil War.

Debating DiLorenzo: Peaceful Abolition?

In Debating DiLorenzo, let’s first look at what he says about peaceable abolition and the Union as a voluntary association.

DILORENZO: And, I guess, one of the things that really bothered me when I started looking into this was when I found out that all of the other countries of the world that ended slavery in the 19th century did it peacefully, and that included New England and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Indiana, the northern United States. And as an economist, I started thinking, well why was this not an alternative for America? Why was it only in America where there was a war attached to the ending of slavery?