After finishing the Johnny Cash biography I have been enjoying this book recounting the history of Lincoln hating in this country since Appomattox. I will be filling in this post with excerpts and comments.
P. 1 Why was Abraham Lincoln so hated? Why was the man who probably is generally considered our greatest President also would have to be considered our most hated and despised President?
P. 151 The original version of "I'll Take My Stand" was published in 1930 defending the "agrarian" way of life in the South and loathing Lincoln.
P. 185 Robert Penn Warren, a Southern Agrarian and famous writer and poet, has a more nuanced view of Lincoln. He tries to bring Lincoln into a modern and sophisticated, pro-Southern as much as is possible view of the man.
P. 187 The most powerful attack on Lincoln during the interwar years was by Edgar Lee Masters. The Lee is from Robert E. Lee. Masters's hero was Stephen Douglas. Whew! What an over-the-top screed!
P. 191 Masters's work expressed his preference for a white-only, Jeffersonian America that was gone forever, anxious for a country whose racial makeup was changing.
P. 206 Lincoln was of periphal concern to economists Hayek and Von Mises.
P. 242 Literary critic Edmund Wilson weighed in on Lincoln. I did not know this.
P. 246 The war led to the inevitable grown of the federal goverment which led to US imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is another thing I didn't realize.
P. 254 An interesting discussion of Vidal's novel Lincoln.
P. 268 The author covers the founding of the League of the South in 1964 with Dr. Michael Hill. This group and this man from Winfield are a big part of the Neo-Confederacy of our time.
P. 269 It is no accident that in these days of movement conservatism that Neo-Confederate criticism of Lincoln has increased dramatically.
P. 270 Even Patrick Buchanan says that the war was fought over tariffs and not slavery.
P. 278 In discussing Lerone Bennett the author points out that the idea that Lincoln was forced to free the slaves was not new with Bennett. Lincoln admitted that he did not control events but that events controlled him. Bennett says that Lincoln was beneficiary of events rather than the creater of events.
P. 279 Bennett says that Lincoln's presidency was the turning point in American history because Lincoln failed to establish an all-white country.
P. 282 The response of McPherson and Foner to Bennett.
P. 283 Did Neely refute Butler? We will never know for sure if Lincoln finally ceased believing in colonization.
P. 306 Arguments over whether secession was constitutional or not are irrelevant. The fact is that eleven Southern states DID seceded. Legality doesn't matter because they did it legally or not.
P. 322 Some of Lincoln critics seem to blame him for every bad thing that has happened in the world since 1865.
P. 332 The idea that Lincoln laid the basis for an American empire is ludicrous.
P. 333 The question of whether Lincoln waged a brutal and inhumane war is a live question.
P. 334 I did not realize the extent that some criticized Lincoln for being crude, vulgar, and an atheist.
P. 335 Lincoln's focus on natural rights bears further thought.
P. 337 I think you have to draw a distinction between Lincoln himself---what he believed, what he said, what he did, the part he played in the instigation and the prosecution of the war---and the results of the war---the inevitable enhancement of federal power, the Civil War Amendments, the progressive legislation that was passed during the war, and the triumph and tragedy of Reconstruction.
P. 339 "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." George Orwell.
P. 339 What Americans think of Lincoln mirrors what they think of themselves and their country. Which is to say: people find what they want to find in Abraham Lincoln.
P. 342 As time goes on if the critics of Lincoln succeed in eradicating his principled contributions to our country, the country will lose and I hope I am living in a country that has dismissed Abraham Lincoln.
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