Download or read book The Real Lincoln written by Thomas J. Dilorenzo and published by Forum Books. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War Most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln to be the greatest president in history. His legend as the Great Emancipator has grown to mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, and a monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom. But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? What if, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in american history in order to build an empire that rivaled Great Britain's? In The Real Lincoln, author Thomas J. DiLorenzo uncovers a side of Lincoln not told in many history books--and overshadowed by the immense Lincoln legend. Through extensive research and meticulous documentation, DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized—as the Founding Fathers intended—to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South, with its independent states, its resistance to the national government, and its reliance on unfettered free trade. To accomplish his goals, Lincoln subverted the Constitution, trampled states' rights, and launched a devastating Civil War, whose wounds haunt us still. According to this provacative book, 600,000 American soldiers did not die for the honorable cause of ending slavery but for the dubious agenda of sacrificing the independence of the states to the supremacy of the federal government, which has been tightening its vise grip on our republic to this very day. In The Real Lincoln, you will discover a side of Lincoln that you were probably never taught in school—a side that calls into question the very myths that surround him and helps explain the true origins of a bloody, and perhaps, unnecessary war.

Download or read book The Problem with Lincoln written by Thomas J. DiLorenzo and published by Regnery History. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Problem with Lincoln Abraham Lincoln was widely and deeply unpopular during his presidency. And for good reason. He overturned our original constitutional order, violated the rights of Americans both North and South, massively inflated the federal government, and plunged the nation into a wholly unnecessary war. Why? Not to free the slaves, as his hagiographers would have you believe, but out of personal ambition, greed for power, and, incidentally, to enrich the railroad interests that supported his political career. Court historians have turned King Lincoln into a secular saint, but what did Abraham Lincoln’s contemporaries know that has been forgotten or covered up? Bestselling author Thomas J. DiLorenzo debunks the pious myths to reveal the real Lincoln. In The Problem with Lincoln, you’ll learn: Why Lincoln was willing to accept a constitutional amendment guaranteeing slavery forever Why no American in 1861, Northerner or Southerner, believed that Lincoln had invaded the South to emancipate the slaves Why secession doesn’t fit the Constitution’s definition of treason—but Lincoln’s war on the South does Lincoln’s greatest failure: not ending slavery peacefully, as the rest of the world managed to do If you want the unvarnished truth about our sixteenth president, read The Problem with Lincoln.

Download or read book Lincoln Unmasked written by Thomas J. Dilorenzo and published by Forum Books. This book was released on 2009-01-21 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if you were told that the revered leader Abraham Lincoln was actually a political tyrant who stifled his opponents by suppressing their civil rights? What if you learned that the man so affectionately referred to as the “Great Emancipator” supported white supremacy and pledged not to interfere with slavery in the South? Would you suddenly start to question everything you thought you knew about Lincoln and his presidency? You should. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, who ignited a fierce debate about Lincoln’s legacy with his book The Real Lincoln, now presents a litany of stunning new revelations that explode the most enduring (and pernicious) myths about our sixteenth president. Marshaling an astonishing amount of new evidence, Lincoln Unmasked offers an alarming portrait of a political manipulator and opportunist who bears little resemblance to the heroic, stoic, and principled figure of mainstream history. Did you know that Lincoln . . . • did NOT save the union? In fact, Lincoln did more than any other individual to destroy the voluntary union the Founding Fathers recognized. • did NOT want to free the slaves? Lincoln, who did not believe in equality of the races, wanted the Constitution to make slavery “irrevocable.” • was NOT a champion of the Constitution? Contrary to his high-minded rhetoric, Lincoln repeatedly trampled on the Constitution—and even issued an arrest warrant for the chief justice of the United States! • was NOT a great statesman? Lincoln was actually a warmonger who manipulated his own people into a civil war. • did NOT utter many of his most admired quotations? DiLorenzo exposes a legion of statements that have been falsely attributed to Lincoln for generations—usually to enhance his image. In addition to detailing Lincoln’s offenses against the principles of freedom, equality, and states’ rights, Lincoln Unmasked exposes the vast network of academics, historians, politicians, and other “gatekeepers” who have sanitized his true beliefs and willfully distorted his legacy. DiLorenzo reveals how the deification of Lincoln reflects a not-so-hidden agenda to expand the size and scope of the American state far beyond what the Founding Fathers envisioned—an expansion that Lincoln himself began. The hagiographers have shaped Lincoln’s image to the point that it has become more fiction than fact. With Lincoln Unmasked, DiLorenzo shows us an Abraham Lincoln without the rhetoric, lies, and political bias that have clouded a disastrous president’s enduring damage to the nation.

Download or read book Rise to Greatness written by David Von Drehle and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Von Drehle has chosen a critical year ('the most eventful year in American history' and the year Lincoln rose to greatness), done his homework, and written a spirited account."N"Publishers Weekly."

Download or read book Abe written by David S. Reynolds and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 1089 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now an Apple TV+ documentary, Lincoln's Dilemma. One of the Wall Street Journal's Ten Best Books of the Year | A Washington Post Notable Book | A Christian Science Monitor and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2020 Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Abraham Lincoln Prize and the Abraham Lincoln Institute Book Award "A marvelous cultural biography that captures Lincoln in all his historical fullness. . . . using popular culture in this way, to fill out the context surrounding Lincoln, is what makes Mr. Reynolds's biography so different and so compelling . . . Where did the sympathy and compassion expressed in [Lincoln's] Second Inaugural—'With malice toward none; with charity for all'—come from? This big, wonderful book provides the richest cultural context to explain that, and everything else, about Lincoln." —Gordon Wood, Wall Street Journal From one of the great historians of nineteenth-century America, a revelatory and enthralling new biography of Lincoln, many years in the making, that brings him to life within his turbulent age David S. Reynolds, author of the Bancroft Prize-winning cultural biography of Walt Whitman and many other iconic works of nineteenth century American history, understands the currents in which Abraham Lincoln swam as well as anyone alive. His magisterial biography Abe is the product of full-body immersion into the riotous tumult of American life in the decades before the Civil War. It was a country growing up and being pulled apart at the same time, with a democratic popular culture that reflected the country's contradictions. Lincoln's lineage was considered auspicious by Emerson, Whitman, and others who prophesied that a new man from the West would emerge to balance North and South. From New England Puritan stock on his father's side and Virginia Cavalier gentry on his mother's, Lincoln was linked by blood to the central conflict of the age. And an enduring theme of his life, Reynolds shows, was his genius for striking a balance between opposing forces. Lacking formal schooling but with an unquenchable thirst for self-improvement, Lincoln had a talent for wrestling and bawdy jokes that made him popular with his peers, even as his appetite for poetry and prodigious gifts for memorization set him apart from them through his childhood, his years as a lawyer, and his entrance into politics. No one can transcend the limitations of their time, and Lincoln was no exception. But what emerges from Reynolds's masterful reckoning is a man who at each stage in his life managed to arrive at a broader view of things than all but his most enlightened peers. As a politician, he moved too slowly for some and too swiftly for many, but he always pushed toward justice while keeping the whole nation in mind. Abe culminates, of course, in the Civil War, the defining test of Lincoln and his beloved country. Reynolds shows us the extraordinary range of cultural knowledge Lincoln drew from as he shaped a vision of true union, transforming, in Martin Luther King Jr.'s words, "the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood." Abraham Lincoln did not come out of nowhere. But if he was shaped by his times, he also managed at his life's fateful hour to shape them to an extent few could have foreseen. Ultimately, this is the great drama that astonishes us still, and that Abe brings to fresh and vivid life. The measure of that life will always be part of our American education.

Download or read book The True Mary Todd Lincoln written by Betty Boles Ellison and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-04-02 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new biography provides a startlingly different picture of Mary Lincoln, President Abraham Lincoln's wife. Preconceived myths about the former first lady are factually disproved. At times her judgment was faulty; in other instances it was brilliant. After her 1861 refurbishing of the Executive Mansion, she made no further furnishings purchases, only replacement items. The furniture she purchased is still in use and the Lincoln bed is well known. Committed to an insane asylum by her only surviving son, she organized, while under constant scrutiny, her friends in a skillfully successful scheme to obtain her freedom and resume control of her life and money. Mary Todd Lincoln had a brilliant mind, a caring heart and an exuberant personality and she was, in every aspect, a true partner to Abraham Lincoln.

Download or read book Abraham Lincoln the War Years written by Carl Sandburg and published by . This book was released on 1939 with total page 655 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Loathing Lincoln written by John McKee Barr and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2014-04-07 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While most Americans count Abraham Lincoln among the most beloved and admired former presidents, a dedicated minority has long viewed him not only as the worst president in the country's history, but also as a criminal who defied the Constitution and advanced federal power and the idea of racial equality. In Loathing Lincoln, historian John McKee Barr surveys the broad array of criticisms about Abraham Lincoln that emerged when he stepped onto the national stage, expanded during the Civil War, and continued to evolve after his death and into the present. The first panoramic study of Lincoln's critics, Barr's work offers an analysis of Lincoln in historical memory and an examination of how his critics -- on both the right and left -- have frequently reflected the anxiety and discontent Americans felt about their lives. From northern abolitionists troubled by the slow pace of emancipation, to Confederates who condemned him as a "black Republican" and despot, to Americans who blamed him for the civil rights movement, to, more recently, libertarians who accuse him of trampling the Constitution and creating the modern welfare state, Lincoln's detractors have always been a vocal minority, but not one without influence. By meticulously exploring the most significant arguments against Lincoln, Barr traces the rise of the president's most strident critics and links most of them to a distinct right-wing or neo-Confederate political agenda. According to Barr, their hostility to a more egalitarian America and opposition to any use of federal power to bring about such goals led them to portray Lincoln as an imperialistic president who grossly overstepped the bounds of his office. In contrast, liberals criticized him for not doing enough to bring about emancipation or ensure lasting racial equality. Lincoln's conservative and libertarian foes, however, constituted the vast majority of his detractors. More recently, Lincoln's most vociferous critics have adamantly opposed Barack Obama and his policies, many of them referencing Lincoln in their attacks on the current president. In examining these individuals and groups, Barr's study provides a deeper understanding of American political life and the nation itself.

Download or read book the real lincoln written by jesse w. weik and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Lincoln Revisited written by Harold Holzer and published by Fordham University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-25 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In February 2009, America celebrates the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, and the pace of new Lincoln books and articles has already quickened. From his cabinet’s politics to his own struggles with depression, Lincoln remains the most written-about story in our history. And each year historians find something new and important to say about the greatest of our Presidents. Lincoln Revisited is a masterly guidePub to what’s new and what’s noteworthy in this unfolding story—a brilliant gathering of fresh scholarship by the leading Lincoln historians of our time. Brought together by The Lincoln Forum, they tackle uncharted territory and emerging questions; they also take a new look at established debates—including those about their own landmark works. Here, these well-known historians revisit key chapters in Lincoln’s legacy—from Matthew Pinsker on Lincoln’s private life and Jean Baker on religion and the Lincoln marriage to Geoffrey Perret on Lincoln as leader and Frank J. Williams on Lincoln and civil liberties in wartime. The eighteen original essays explore every corner of Lincoln’s world—religion and politics, slavery and sovereignty, presidential leadership and the rule of law, the Second Inaugural Address and the assassination. In his 1947 classic, Lincoln Reconsidered, David Herbert Donald confronted the Lincoln myth. Today, the scholars in Lincoln Revisited give a new generation of students, scholars, and citizens the perspectives vital for understanding the constantly reinterpreted genius of Abraham Lincoln.

Download or read book Lincoln and the Fight for Peace written by John Avlon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking and “affecting and powerful” (The New York Times Book Review) history of Abraham Lincoln’s plan to secure a just and lasting peace after the Civil War—a vision that inspired future presidents as well as the world’s most famous peacemakers. As the tide of the Civil War turned in the spring of 1865, Abraham Lincoln took a dangerous two-week trip to visit the troops on the front lines accompanied by his young son, seeing combat up close, meeting liberated slaves in the ruins of Richmond, and comforting wounded Union and Confederate soldiers. The power of Lincoln’s personal example in the closing days of the war offers a portrait of a peacemaker. He did not demonize people he disagreed with. He used humor, logic, and scripture to depolarize bitter debates. Balancing moral courage with moderation, Lincoln believed that decency could be the most practical form of politics, but he understood that people were more inclined to listen to reason when greeted from a position of strength. Ulysses S. Grant’s famously generous terms of surrender to General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox that April were an expression of a president’s belief that a soft peace should follow a hard war. While his assassination sent the country careening off course, Lincoln’s vision would be vindicated long after his death, inspiring future generations in their own quests to secure a just and lasting peace. As US General Lucius Clay, architect of the post-WWII German occupation said when asked what guided his decisions: “I tried to think of the kind of occupation the South would have had if Abraham Lincoln had lived.” Lincoln and the Fight for Peace reveals with “its graceful prose and wise insights” (Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Soul of America) how Lincoln’s character informed his commitment to unconditional surrender followed by a magnanimous peace. Even during the Civil War, surrounded by reactionaries and radicals, he refused to back down from his belief that there is more that unites us than divides us. But he also understood that peace needs to be waged with as much intensity as war. Lincoln’s plan to win the peace is his unfinished symphony, but in its existing notes, we can find an anthem that can begin to bridge our divisions today.

Download or read book Land of Lincoln written by Andrew Ferguson and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before he grew up and became one of Washington's most respected reporters and editors, Andrew Ferguson was, of all things, a Lincoln buff. Like so many sons of Illinois before him, he hung photos of Abe on his bedroom wall, memorized the Gettysburg Address, and read himself to sleep at night with the Second Inaugural or the Letter to Mrs. Bixby. Ferguson eventually outgrew his obsession. But decades later, his latent buffdom was reignited by a curious headline in a local newspaper: Lincoln Statue Stirs Outrage in Richmond. Lincoln? thought Ferguson. Outrage? I felt the first stirrings of the fatal question, the question that, once raised, never lets go: Huh? In Land of Lincoln, Ferguson embarks on a curiosity-fueled coast-to-coast journey through contemporary Lincoln Nation, encountering everything from hatred to adoration to opportunism and all manner of reaction in between. He attends a national conference of Lincoln impersonators in Indiana; seeks out the premier collectors of Lincoln memorabilia from California to Rhode Island; attends a Dale Carnegie-inspired leadership conference based on Lincoln's management style; drags his family across the three-state-long and now defunct Lincoln Heritage Trail; and even manages to hold one of five original copies of the Gettysburg Address. Along the way he weaves in enough history to hook readers of presidential biographies and popular histories while providing the engaging voice and style of the best narrative journalism. Ultimately, Land of Lincoln is an entertaining, unexpected, and big-hearted celebration of Lincoln and his enduring influence on the country he helped create.

Download or read book Forced Into Glory written by Lerone Bennett and published by Johnson Publishing Company (IL). This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with the argument that the Emancipation Proclamation did not actually free African American slaves, this dissenting view of Lincoln's greatness surveys the president's policies, speeches, and private utterances and concludes that he had little real interest in abolition. Pointing to Lincoln's support for the fugitive slave laws, his friendship with slave-owning senator Henry Clay, and conversations in which he entertained the idea of deporting slaves in order to create an all-white nation, the book, concludes that the president was a racist at heart--and that the tragedies of Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era were the legacy of his shallow moral vision.

Download or read book Lincoln lore written by Ray Broadus Browne and published by Popular Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of poems, songs, stories, cartoons, and satires on the 16th US president, Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) most from his own time or shortly thereafter. Enlarged from the 1974 edition to include material that has been surfaced since, and to add a large collection of cartoons from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Contributors include Unionists and Secessionists, friends and foes, and African Americans. No index. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book The Lincoln No One Knows written by Webb Garrison and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2001-02-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike other biographies on Abraham Lincoln, "The Lincoln No One Knows" focuses on the mysteries that continue to bewilder those who try to understand the man. "Both edifying and entertaining, this is an innovative work, adeptly written and well researched", says "Civil War", the magazine of the Civil War Society.

Download or read book Lincoln written by Richard Carwardine and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-01-09 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a defender of national unity, a leader in war, and the emancipator of slaves, Abraham Lincoln lays ample claim to being the greatest of our presidents. But the story of his rise to greatness is as complex as it is compelling. In this superb, prize-winning biography, acclaimed historian Richard Carwardine examines Lincoln’s dramatic political journey, from his early years in the Illinois legislature to his nation-shaping years in the White House. Here, Carwardine combines a new perspective with a compelling narrative to deliver a fresh look at one of the pillars of American politics. He probes the sources of Lincoln’s moral and political philosophy and uses his groundbreaking research to cut through the myth and expose the man behind it.

Download or read book The Broken Constitution written by Noah Feldman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice An innovative account of Abraham Lincoln, constitutional thinker and doer Abraham Lincoln is justly revered for his brilliance, compassion, humor, and rededication of the United States to achieving liberty and justice for all. He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution—a system he regarded as the “last best hope of mankind.” But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution? In this groundbreaking study, Noah Feldman argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States’ founding arrangements. When he came to power, it was widely believed that the federal government could not use armed force to prevent a state from seceding. It was also assumed that basic civil liberties could be suspended in a rebellion by Congress but not by the president, and that the federal government had no authority over slavery in states where it existed. As president, Lincoln broke decisively with all these precedents, and effectively rewrote the Constitution’s place in the American system. Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact—a rough and ready deal between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution came to be seen as a sacred text—a transcendent statement of the nation’s highest ideals. The Broken Constitution is the first book to tell the story of how Lincoln broke the Constitution in order to remake it. To do so, it offers a riveting narrative of his constitutional choices and how he made them—and places Lincoln in the rich context of thinking of the time, from African American abolitionists to Lincoln’s Republican rivals and Secessionist ideologues. Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations