[quote]Dustin wrote:
By whom, you? I have the book sitting on the shelf at home. Give me an example of him not using primary sources in “good faith” and I can look it up tonight.[/quote]
Sure thing. DiLorenzo cites Lincoln’s “quote” as an indictment:
Lincoln even mocked the Jeffersonian dictum enshrined in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. He admitted that it had become “a genuine coin in the political currency of our generation,” but added, “I am sorry to say that I have never seen two men of whom it is true. But I must admit I never saw the Siamese Twins, and therefore will not dogmatically say that no man ever saw a proof of this sage aphorism”. So, with the possible exception of Siamese Twins, the idea of equality, according to Lincoln, was a sheer absurdity. This is in stark contrast to the seductive words of the Gettysburg Address, eleven years later, in which he purported to rededicate the nation to the notion that all men are created equal.
Here is the actual quote:
[i][There are] a few, but an increasing number of men, who, for the sake of perpetuating slavery, are beginning to assail and to ridicule the white man’s charter of freedom, the declaration “that all men are created equal.” So far as I have learned, the first American, of any note, to do or attempt this, was the late John C. Calhoun; and if I mistake not, it soon after found its way into some of the messages of the Governors of South Carolina. We, however, look for, and are not much shocked by, political eccentricities and heresies in South Carolina. But, only last year, I saw with astonishment, what purported to be a letter of a very distinguished and influential clergyman of Virginia, copied, with apparent approbation, into a St. Louis newspaper, containing the following, to me, very extraordinary language:
[u]I am fully aware that there is a text in some Bibles that is not in mine. Professional abolitionists have made more use of it, than of any passage in the Bible. It came, however, as I trace it, from Saint Voltaire, and was baptized by Thomas Jefferson, and since almost universally regarded as canonical authority ‘All men are born equal and free.’
This is a genuine coin in the political currency of our generation. I am sorry to say that I have never seen two men of whom it is true. But I must admit I never saw the Siamese Twins, and therefore will not dogmatically say that no man ever saw a proof of this sage aphorism.[/u]
This sounds strangely in republican America. The like was not heard in the fresher days of the Republic.[/i]
So, the quote DiLorenzo attributes to Lincoln as an indictment is actually Lincoln quoting a Virginia clergyman and then criticizing the clergyman’s quote.
Michael Moore couldn’t be prouder of such dishonest editing.
So, a discredited hack is a discredited hack.
Uh yeah, they are. Start on page one of this thread. We have had such wacky inventions that Lincoln started the war to make sure and keep the federal tax revenue stream from the South in place and that Lincoln had the power to make slavery illegal throughout the United States all by himself at the stroke of a pen but he chose not because he hates Black people.
Sure thing, Dustin. Get some new material.