people . . . there is a physical difference between the white andrnblack races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races livingrntogether on terms of social and political equality.”rnEarly in his career, Lincoln had favored the deportation ofrnblacks to Africa or Latin America—a massive campaign of ethnicrncleansing—but realizing the impracticalitv of suchrnschemes, he was “in favor of having the superior position assignedrnto the white race.” Too much should not be made ofrnLincoln’s lifelong commitment to white racial hegemony. Hisrnracial outlook was almost entirely conventional. His only distinctionrnis the success he had in combining negrophobia withrnresentment of the South as a winning electoral strategy.rnLincoln justified his extralegal acts on the grounds that hernwas saving the Union, but since he routinelv violated the Constitutionrnon which that Union was based, he is like the man whornbeats his wife in order to save the marriage. Until the Southernrnstates seceded, Lincoln had never contradicted an earlier statementrnhe had made, endorsing the right to secede: “Anv peoplernanywhere … have the right to rise up and shake off the existingrngovernment, and form a new one that suits them better,”rnadding that “Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize,rnand make their own, of so much territory as tlievrninhabit.” To make it clear that this was no casual obiter dictum,rnhe also said: “This is a most valuable, a most sacred right—arnright which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.”rnThe worship of Lincoln was an almost natural phenomenonrnin the years after a brutal and tragic war. More recently. FatherrnAbraham is honored for the ideological revolution he begat, arnrevolution that converted a moderate and balanced republic intornthe kind of Jacobin democracy practiced by Robespierre.rnLike Robespierre, Lincoln was a nonbelie er who loved to misusernreligious language. M.E. Bradford aptly criticized “hisrnhabit of wrapping up his policy in the idiom of Holy Scripture,rnconcealing within the Trojan horse of his gasconade and moralrnsuperiority, an agenda that would never have been approved ifrnpresented in any other form,”rnReligious rhetoric was common in American statesmen ofrnthe 19th century, man of whom were committed Christians.rnLincoln, on the other hand, was a freethinker. His stepmotherrnsaid of the young Lincoln’s religion: “Abe had no particular religionrn—didn’t think of these questions at that time, if he e’errndid,” and as one early biographer put it, “When he went tornchurch at all, he went to mock and came awa to mimic.” Hernfrequentlv spoke against the divinity of Christ, and there is nornsign that he changed his mind.rnThis mixture of messianic language and cynical brutalit- isrncommonplace among our own rulers, particularly in domesticrnpolitics, where the ideology of ciil rights and humanrnrights are invoked to justifv wars of conquest and the sub ersionrnof e’crv obstacle to totalitarian government. Back in the 60’srnthere were well-meaning idealists who thought that Southernrnstates ought to grant voting rights and other privileges tornAfrican-American citizens. Many were content to fight thesernbattles locally in a civil manner and with respect for the Constitution.rnOthers, however, on the principle that might makesrnright, invoked the power of the federal government, whosernagents were all too happy to step in and impose a second reconstruction.rnBut how do these human rights work in practice? Beforern1965 black Southerners, it is certainly true, enjoyed fewer cixilrnrights than whites; now, we are all equalK disenfranchised andrndisempowered. There is no point in blaming blacks, who werernmerely the tool of ambitious lawyers and politicians. We are allrnin the same boat. A few years ago in Alexandria, Virginia, arnblack mother was sick of seeing drug peddlers in her neighborhood.rnShe succeeded in getting an antiloitering ordinancernpassed, only to see it challenged b- the NAACP. What kind ofrncivil rights organization, she asked, puts drug dealers back onrnthe streets of a black neighborhood?rnThe administrations of Lincoln and Crant were a trial runrnfor the imperial government that has been replacing the OldrnRepublic since 1932. It was in Lincoln’s administration thatrnthe government learned the dangerous lesson that to financernthe schemes that enriched their supporters the government onlyrnneeded to print more money. The Gilded Age of corruptionrnduring the Grant administration was only a successor to Lincoln’srnwheeling and dealing. As Bradford comments: “The euphemismrnof our time calls this ‘income redistribution,’ but itrnwas theft in 1864, and it is theft today.”rnConserative historian Gottfried Dietze compared Lincoln’srnregime with the French Committee of Public Safety, which imposedrna reign of terror on the people of France, hi a famous articlernMel Bradford outlined Lincoln’s dictatorial measures: hernillegally summoned the militia in 1861 (without Congress),rnspent millions in unauthorized funds, decreed a blockade, defiedrnthe Supreme Court, seized property, arrested oer 20,000rnof his political enemies and confined them without trial, closedrnover 300 newspapers, imported an army of foreign mercenariesrn(as many as 500,000 men), used federal troops to secure hisrnown reelection, and created the state of West Virginia in defiancernof the Constitution.rnThe result «’as the creation of an American system thatrnturned its back on Jeffersonian democracy and elevated the nationalrngovernment to a divine status. As our own current Presidentrnhas said, there are those who say they love their countryrnbut hate their government. Before Lincoln, this attitude wouldrnhave puzzled no one. This republic was founded by men whornloved their country but hated their government. The price ofrnlibert)’ is eternal vigilance, and it is against our rulers that wernmust be on guard.rnPerhaps Lincoln’s worst bequest was to African-Americans.rnA few years ago I was having lunch with a black historian in New-rnYork, and he observed of Lincoln that his EmancipationrnProclamation plunged millions of African-Americans into arnmarket economv they did not understand. The best historiansrnof slavery- have shown that, on average, black slaves were betterrnoff than contemporary white workers in the North and betterrnoff than their own free children after emancipation. Anyonernwho says that at least those children had their freedom, knowsrnvery little of the African-American experience.rnToda”, man’ wars after Mr. Lincoln’s and with trillions ofrndollars of debt, the American people are bondslaves to greatrnmultinational interests who send our sons into foreign wars inrnwhich we have nothing to gain, who openly bribe our politicalrnleaders with campaign contributions from foreign governments,rnand who have created a ast government apparatus thatrntells us how to bring up our children, where to send them tornschool, how to provide for our elderiy parents, what we can eatrnand drink, what we can smoke, and what we can say or think. IfrnGeorge Washington and Thomas Jefferson had known whatrnlay ahead, they would have put on red coats and suppressed thernsecessionists of 1776.rn12/CHRONICLESrnrnrn