One of the nicest features of Tom Woods’s book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, is the little boxed-in sections on “Books You Are Not Supposed to Read.” One that I would have included in the chapter on the War to Prevent Southern Independence is The Lincoln No One Knows: 38 Mysteries of One of America’s Most Admired Presidents,” by Webb Garrison.
The late Professor Garrison devoted his career to the study of Lincoln and the war, published fifty-five books on the topic (!), and served as associate dean of Emory University and president of McKendree College in Lebanon, Illinois. The book is filled with facts drawn from exclusively primary sources that very few Americans have ever heard of, thanks to all the lies, deceptions, and whitewashing by America’s court historians. Here are a few snippets from Garrison’s conclusions chapter:
“Lincoln did not know the identity of his paternal grandfather [and this] constituted an opportunity: he could imagine himself to be the grandson of anyone he chose. His reverence for the Declaration of Independence and his elevation of that document above the Constitution hint that he may have believed himself to be the grandson of Thomas Jefferson.”
“To a degree not generally recognized, Abraham Lincoln curtailed civil liberties and scoffed at the U.S. Supreme Court . . . in the name of preserving the Union, the president came perilously close to establishing a military dictatorship in the North.”
“Because he generally interpreted the U.S. Constitution to suit his own purposes [Lincoln] succeeded in vastly expanding the concept of ‘war powers’ of the president. Precedents he set led to the twentieth-century development of he ‘imperial presidency’. [By] calling out militia to fight an undeclared war . . . Lincoln established precedents that led to Vietnam.”
‘Military considerations, not eagerness for social justice, led a frontiersman who today seems to have been bigoted to issue the Emancipaton Proclamation.”
“[B]elieving that many of his actions were predtermined he followed a course that cost the lives of an etimated 623,000 Americans. In doing so . . . . From a group of strong states with a loose central government, he forged a nation in which Washington became the center of power. He established paper currency as the basis of commerce and initiated the practice of forcing Americans into military service by means of conscription.”
“Not even George Washington in all his glory made a lasting impact upon the nation comparable to that of the inspired self-taught mystic who was all but obsessed with the notion of Union.”
9:20 am on January 3, 2005
