Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Mask

Lincoln Unmasked, Thomas DiLorenzo, 2006

The paint is pealing on the Lincoln portrait. The truth is leaking out about Abe. The Lincoln cult is failing. It is about time. Thomas DiLorenzo is amount the scholars doing history a rare service: telling the truth. When it comes to Abe, fiction reigns. No American president has received better press that Abraham Lincoln. University historians have been relentless in their protection of the Lincoln myth. You know the myth: you learned it in school. It is not the myth about the cherry tree cutting down an ax. That president has not been so lucky. It is the myth of how noble, selfless, and principled President Lincoln was.

DiLorenzo debunks all that. Dilorenzo exposes Lincoln as the corrupt, railroad-own bigot he was. Freed the slaves? Only those still under rebel control. (Read the Emancipation Proclamation.) Preserve the Union? Preserve the northern State’s protective tariffs on imported manufactured goods, and so transfer the wealth of the south to the northern banks. Built the Transcontinental Railroad to open the west? Loot the southern (and northern) taxpayers to help the few who had land near the tracks. Lincoln was one.

The author shows Lincoln as a liar, a cheat, and a pawn. The railroads owned Lincoln. Lincoln saw his opportunities and took them. Others paid.

DiLorenzo shows how Lincoln never wanted to free the slaves. He  wanted to deport them. He did not want them in the new, western territories. Lincoln wanted so badly to free the slaves he agreed to a proposed constitutional amendment that would have forbidden government interference with slavery.

This is not the stuff of school text books. There is a reason for that: the Lincoln cult. DiLorenzo shows how the accepted version of history has beguiled a nation for generations.

The text of the book is only 183 pages, but information fills those pages. There is an appendix entitled “What They Don’t Want You to Read.” Use it to do your homework. DiLorenzo’s book is a must read for every American history curriculum. Attention homeschoolers!