Will Lincoln go down in History,as America's Dictator President?

[Karen S. Campbell]

Lincoln is not well liked by strict Libertarians today because they think that he invented "big government" during the Civil War. They also criticize him for government intrusion into the public sector through the Federal government's support of the Continental Railroad. They believe he destroyed the founding principles of the Republic and that he was an ego-driven interventionist and dictator!! They claim that the Civil War was not fought to end slavery or save the union, but to expand the powers of the central government. The CSA was fighting for small government and were the first to oppose "big government." They also paint Lincoln as a terrible racist.

The best known example of a Libertarian critic of Lincoln is economist Thomas J. Lorenzo, a senior faculty member at the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute. Lorenzo has written two books about the "real" Lincoln: Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe, Crown, 224 pages, 2006 and The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, Prima, 272 pages, 2002.

I wonder if Lincoln would recognize the Republican Party today since it has been so highly influenced by the far right. I doubt whether Lincoln could find much in common with Ayn Rand's "Objectivism" ideology or she with him. Nor would he have much in common with far right Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, who have adopted aspects of Ayn Rand's utopian ideology of ultra-capitalism, since he, although a man of faith during his Presidency, rejected the absolutism of creeds and doctrine, but not the faith itself or the basic Judeo-Christian morality. Lincoln was a true moderate as well as a practical politician with principles. He was not an ideological extremist.

You can listen to Lorenzo on YouTube, for example: