The real Lincoln - Thomas J DiLorenzo

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.