Delorenzo's First Inaugural Address Analysis

DiLorenzo, Thomas J. The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. New York, New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002.

DiLorenzo outlines the unlawful things that Lincoln did. Lincoln commenced an invasion with Congress’ consent, he illegally suspended the court order of Habeas Corpus, he imprisoned tens of thousands of political adversaries from the North, closed approximately three hundred rival newspapers, he cut off all communications by telegraph, he imprisoned a great number of elected legislature of Maryland, and he also imprisoned Baltimore’s Mayor. Thomas DiLorenzo teaches Economics at the Sellinger School of Business and Management at Loyola College in Maryland. He has written eleven books. He also

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union (35).’

This letter is very important because it contradicts everything that Lincoln said in his First Inaugural Address just seven months before this was written. In his address he stated that he didn’t have the authority from the constitution to interrupt slavery, but after the letter he was willing to ignore the whole Constitution and emphasize more or less powers in the dictatorship. It is also very important, according to DiLorenzo, to note that Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave.

Chapter four gets down to Henry Clay’s “American System” which was Lincoln’s real agenda. The debate over this agenda was possibly the most important political debate during the first seventy years of America’s existence as a nation. This debate involved the nation’s most important statesmen and set the states’ rights Jeffersonians against the Hamiltonians. War ended the debate in

He claims that instead of doing that it is merely a “rehash of Confederate propaganda spiced up with touches of Marxist economic analysis” (Washington Times, May 4, 2002). The way he explains the book, in his point of view, is taken by many as a weakness of this book. In a May 29, 2006 article entitled “Honest Appraisal of Lincoln” in The New American newspaper, Clark restates the main points in DiLorenzo’s book ending his statement by saying that “DiLorenzo has merely given us an honest appraisal of Lincoln.” This can be seen as a strength of the