Rating: 
Summary: A very readable book that doesn't waste your time
Review: DiLorenzo's book on Lincoln is straight forward,
clearly written, factual yet brief and well footnoted.
It was an enjoyable read.For me it was a 2-3 day read and the best treatise on Lincoln and the War of Secession I have read. The impetus behind this historic tragedy can be best identified as: tariffs, subsidies, and banking; in a word, EMPIRE. Sound familliar? It should because these are the very problems we face today in America. After reading this book, the "War against Slavery" will have the same hollow ring as the "War against Drugs" and the "War against Terrorism." Now that's something we can all relate to, eh? This book is definite ammo against anyone who is so naive to think that Lincoln "freed the slaves."
Rating:
Summary: It's about time someone wrote this book!
Review: This is an excellent book! I'd give it more stars if I could. This book logically presents the truth about Lincoln and the South. Let's face it...the sugar-coated textbook images of Lincoln just don't make sense. One can only believe them if one blindly believes everything one reads. I have never been able to come to terms with what Lincoln SAID and what he DID. This book explains it all. Thank you, Mr. DiLorenzo.
Rating: 
Summary: Completely Unreconstructed
Review: The jacket blurb that suggests that a peaceful secession, an idea heartily endorsed by author Dilorenzo, would have been best solution says it all. Allowing the Confederate experiment, which was based upon the proposition--as CSA Vice President Alexander H. Stephens boasted in his infamous cornerstone speech--that one man can own another and appropriate his labor, to succeed would have allowed slavery to live at least several decades longer. This profoundly acontextual study will be very popular with racists, Klansmen, and neo-Confederates everywhere.
Rating:
Summary: Battle of Ideologies
Review: This book is not an unbiased biography of Lincoln; it is a riveting analysis of a war -- a war of arms and a war of ideology. It wastes no time getting to the point, and DiLorenzo's masterful handling of complex material is as fascinating in its content as it is its condemnation of a man many believe to be America's greatest president. But if Abraham Lincoln was America's greatest president, then it is an America quite removed from the one envisioned and framed by the founding fathers. The framers wrote volumes warning future generations against the evils of centralized government, oppressive taxes (especially an income tax), federal subsidies, tyrannical democracy, and central banking. Each of these Lincoln willingly embraced, the entire time pretending to revere and sustain the Constitution he was undermining. His sweeping disregard of the 10th and 2nd Amendments, his suspension of the 1st Amendment and the writ of habeas corpus, his leashing of an illconceived an undeclared war, unrestrained murder of innocent civilians during war and use of punitive tariffs were all part of a calculated reign of terror. The proverbial wool that has been placed over the eyes of millions in the North and South is brutally sheared by DiLorenzo and many may not like what they see. Even so, a sizable number of Republicans and Democrats will feel Lincoln's departure from the antiquated notions of states' rights and limited federal authority was not only justified, but part of the Nation's evolution towards "a more perfect Union." Indeed, it's amazing how similar today's Republican Party is to the Republican/Whig parties of Lincoln's time. It's equally as amazing to see how the Democrats, once the standard bearers of the Constitution, the founding fathers and limited government, now obnoxiously advocate blatant socialism, oppressive federal taxation and a central government without practical limits. DiLorenzo's book has the virtue of being insightful, well written and devastating to the Lincolnian myth. Many of Lincoln's defenders will no doubt sputter and choke in rage, but they will be hard pressed to answer DiLorenzo's charges with anything except name calling. In In many respects the America of 1776 ceased to exist on the day Lincoln took office. Lincoln then became the father of a new nation far removed from the Constitution and the wisdom of the framers.
Rating:
Summary: BEST BOOK ON LINCOLN/CIVIL WAR EVER
Review: I wish I could give this book ten stars. If you ever read only one book on Lincoln, the Civil War (War Between the States), or American History--this is the one to read! Dilorenzo has done a great job with a difficult subject, one that has been covered in hundreds of books in the past, with varying degrees of success. Dilorenzo has finally done it--he has presented an interesting, pithy, unvarnished account of Lincoln and his effect on American history. This is the kind of history and analysis I wish I had been taught in grade school and college. Dilorenzo is to be commended. Any lover of freedom, truth, history, and America will love this book!
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Summary: Beheading the Great Messiah
Review: DiLorenzo, economist and historian, and one of the finest Lincoln scholars to date, has long been writing on the tyrannical follies of this brutal monster that the mainstream holds up as the Savior of the Union. DiLorenzo takes the reader on a compelling, historical journey that starts with Lincoln's avowed opposition toward equality for negroes, and ends with the costs of Lincoln's War, saying, "Despite an unspeakably bloody war, the demolition of constitutional liberties, and the conquest and subjugation of the South for twelve years after the war, Lincoln and his party still failed to completely destroy federalism and states' rights." In between, the book takes the perspective that Lincoln's real agenda was the centralization of government, and from that comes mercantilism, economic protectionism, central banking, and a host of other frightful, anti-liberty measures. Lincoln, as all true scholars know, was a ruthless dictator that ran roughshod over an entire region (the South) in his attempt to make the nationalization of everyone and everything more than a wet dream. In his true dictatorial mindset, he spread the notion of Southern secession as treasonous and dangerous to a representative form of government. What Lincoln didn't say was that the right of secession was inherent in the original formation of a Republic under the Constitution. Lincoln, while crushing the South under his military machine and by way of a crooked Lincolnian court system, has been transformed into the indomitable icon of the American Union. But yet, this beast ruled the country by presidential decree, exercised dictatorial powers over a free people, and proceeded to wage war without a declaration from Congress. Lincoln blocked Southern shipping ports, justifying his actions by saying "he would enforce all laws and collect all revenues due the North." The blockades were an act of war. He set his Northern Army upon the South at Fort Sumter, and set in motion one of the most brutal attacks ever upon freedom by maneuvering the South into firing the first shot at their Northern aggressors. Furthermore, his "New Army" and the slaughter effort on the South put into motion an unprecedented profusion of federal coercion against free citizens, both North and South. By way of conscription, he assembled a vast army by presidential decree, an act of flagrant misconduct which drafted individuals into slavery to the federal government. Additionally, any war dissenters or advocates of a peaceful settlement with the South were jailed, and Habeus Corpus was abolished for the duration of the war. He then tossed into the slammer as many as 30,000 civilians WITHOUT due process of law for reasons of criticizing the Lincoln administration, and suppressed HUNDREDS of newspapers that did not support his war effort. DiLorenzo sets the record straight on all of this, and he does it without overwhelming the readers with horse-poop adjectives and Thesaurus-whooping to *impress* the reader. He's just a damn good writer who tells us the facts in fine fashion. Buy this book, and whether or not you like the facts that he presents, you may be reading the best book you'll read all year.
Rating: 
Summary: Does NOT claim Lincoln was an invader from Zoldar!
Review: Thomas DiLorenzo does NOT claim Lincoln was an alien being. So there is at least that much in common between his picture of Lincoln (with its oh-so-modest title) and every other book you've read about our greatest and noblest president. Once you get beyond that, though, you will likely feel you've entered a topsy-turvy world where the peacefully agrarian South was the victim of relentless Northern aggression (excuse me, who fired on who over whose refusal to accept the Constitutional outcome of a presidential election?). Where Lincoln, who amassed a substantial record in opposition to the Mexican war and other such imperialist actions by Southerners like James Polk, becomes a rapacious and bloodthirsty conquistador. Where the Emancipation Proclamation is merely cover for total war (never mind that it worked). Where the sacred principle of "states' rights" means South Carolina has the right to prevent discussion of slavery in public, but has nothing to say about Massachusetts' right not to enforce the fugitive slave law. Where an American president should just roll over and let any government (a county, a city, a township?) remove itself from the nation whenever it fails to get its way on the national level (for the first time in 80 years, I might add, in the South's case in 1860), and where the many states the USA would have splintered into as a result miraculously wouldn't have swallowed up by other empires. (Imagine Hitler eyeing the Republic of Louisiana's oil reserves, or Che Guevara leading an uprising in El Florida. You imagine it, because DiLorenzo certainly doesn't.) In short, this is a picture of Lincoln that could only come from the fevered imagination of the far Southern-libertarian fringe, and has to play extremely loosely with facts and interpretation to seem superficially credible. Read a terrific Lincoln book like William Lee Miller's Lincoln's Virtues next to it, and get the true picture that this book works overtime to distort.
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Summary: Blowing away the fog of myth and lies
Review: William Manchester used the phrase 'American Caesar' to describe General Douglas MacArthur, but it applies much more fittingly to Abraham Lincoln, America's first (and God willing only) full-fledged military dictator. The gravedigger of the U.S. Constitution, Lincoln buried the founders' Union as completely as Lenin buried the Romanovs. And like Lenin, Lincoln built an empire on bayonets, brutality, and centralized power. As historian Richard Bensel (quoted by Thomas DiLorenzo in the introduction to this book) wrote, any student of the American state should begin his reading with 1865. Whatever happened before then no longer has any relevance. DiLorenzo's little book began rocking conservative and libertarian circles even before its publication, proving what someone once said, that the way to tell the difference between the two schools of thought is to ask them what they think about Lincoln. To the outrage of the fans of centralized government, DiLorenzo is not only an excellent writer but a skilled researcher too. Votaries of Saint Abraham's iconic image have an awful lot of 'splainin' to do. In fact, as DiLorenzo notes, much of the writing on Lincoln over the decades has been exactly this: historians rationalizing Lincoln's decidedly un-godlike words and deeds. Whether a reader is willing to see through this fog depends on how open she is to challenging established 'truths.' Lincoln's defenders often employ the slander that criticizing the Great Emancipator is the moral equivalent of defending slavery. But history shows that slavery ended around the world during that era, and no place required the bloody war Lincoln waged. DiLorenzo proves that throughout his life, up to and including the War, Lincoln's driving force was his devotion to Henry Clay's 'American System' of internal improvement, nationalized banking, and a powerful central government. As DiLorenzo shows, a confederacy of states exercising their (previously unquestioned) right to secession would have been an intolerable obstacle to Lincoln's driving ambition. DiLorenzo also catalogues Lincoln's wartime offenses against the Constitution, the people (North and South alike), the Southern states, and the very 'Union' he was allegedly trying to save. If for no other reason than Lincoln's deliberate strategy of waging war against civilians -- DiLorenzo shows that the policy came straight from Lincoln's own hand -- it's hard to deny historian Lee Kennett's conclusion (quoted on page 197-198) that a victorious Confederacy would have been entirely justified in executing Abraham Lincoln for crimes against humanity. Most damning to the modern myth of Lincoln as a man tormented by America's original sin of slavery, DiLorenzo shows that the Great Emancipator never in his life accepted the fundamental equality of all persons. Until his death, he denied that free African-Americans could be assimilated into the US population. His solution was to 'return' all blacks, even native-born ones, to their 'homeland' of west Africa, or exile them to the Caribbean or Central America. Like the statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Abraham Lincoln's towering reputation stands on feet of clay, propped up by generations of myth-making, political opportunism, and -- yes -- lies. But nothing so fundamentally flawed can long endure. Toppling the Lincoln of myth is essential not only for recovering the promise of America's founding, but also for healing the social fractures spreading since his death. Thomas DiLorenzo has not only written an excellent book, but has performed a valuable and necessary service.
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Summary: The TRUE Story!
Review: Although much of this story has been told before, Mr. Dilorenzo pulls it all together in a HIGHLY readable style. The crust of legend surrounding Mr. Lincoln MUST be blown away, and the story of this architect of the Leviathan State told, until the TRUTH shines through to all Americans, and the task of re-claiming Constitutional government can begin. In the words of Alexander Stephens, late Vice-President of the Confederate States, "The cause of the South is now the cause of ALL Americans."
Rating: 
Summary: Revisionist, or just anti-nationalist?
Review: We have a memorial of Abraham Lincoln in the middle of Washington D.C. Has he earned it? Author Thomas J. DiLorenzo probably would say "absolutely not." DiLorenzo's historical analysis actually should not come as much of a surprise at all -- he has meticulously researched this topic. For instance, it should be no surprise that the Lincoln administration severely infringed on civil rights during the War Between the States. Mere critics of Lincoln were summarily jailed and even exiled (such as the most vocal Lincoln opponent, Clement Vallandigham). Also, the South had legitimate grievances that should have -- could have -- been settled peacefully, including, certainly, slavery. Lincoln's love affair with Hamilton-esque Whiggery was a major point of contention of the two (North and South) regions. Southerners opposed this system of high tariffs, a national banking system, and [federal] subsidies for internal improvements. Lincoln also believed that the right of secession -- virtually considered sacrosanct until his administration -- was not a "right" at all, and that the states "existed at the behest of the federal government." This, DiLorenzo argues, is so contrary to the established principles of the American Founding as to defy description. What may be surprising are some of the conclusions DiLorenzo has drawn from his research. He makes the (very persuasive) case that Lincoln alone is responsible for the virtual demise of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian federalism. Historians can trace the centralization of power in Washington D.C. right to Lincoln. He indicts Lincolnian policies as "mercantilist," equating them with the economics of the European powers of the [then] recent past and present. Regarding slavery, the author states that Lincoln had no real interest in emancipation, and that the Emancipation Proclamation was merely a political gimmick. After all, it had no real power, and didn't even free those slaves in the North. He provides evidence that one of Lincoln's "solutions" to the slave "problem" was colonization -- that is, sending blacks back to Africa or other areas such as Haiti. DiLorenzo concludes that war was not necessary to resolve the situation on the 1860s. Secession was a right established in the Founding, and the states that wished to secede should have been left alone to do so. Slavery could have (would have, actually) been done away with gradually through compensation as was the case in Europe and other areas in the Americas. Indeed, compensation would have cost the federal gov. MUCH less than what the Civil War had cost the country. (And not just in the number of dead, which DiLorenzo equates to 8 million total given the pop. of the US today.) Ultimately, if the South had been left alone, they would most likely have re-entered the Union at a later time since slavery would have been abolished -- peacefully -- and the North would have been tempered by the South's secession, and after a new evaluation of Jeffersonian principles. Critics of Lincoln like DiLorenzo are not new, perhaps just obscure. I recommend reading the works of Frank L. Klement, who, some 40-50 years ago was considered "a revisionist" for his criticisms of Lincoln and his defense of "Copperheadism."
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