Rothbard on Lincoln
Thomas Allen
In “Just War,” which is based on a talk given in May 1994 and posted in March 2012 (https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/murray-n-rothbard/whats-a-just-war/), Murray Rothbard gives an excellent description of Abraham Lincoln (Rothbard [1926-1995] was a libertarian economist of the Austrian School, economic historian, and political theorist. He was a proponent of anarcho-capitalism and part of the post-World War II Old Right.)
The War for Southern Independence (Lincoln’s War) gave Lincoln the opportunity to invoke statist tyranny of reform liberalism — and he fervently took advantage of the opportunity. He overthrew States’ rights, which was the foundation of the Constitution of 1789, and the ownership of slaves (by making all Americans slaves of the oligarchs, although only a few realize that they are slaves).
Lincoln’s “major emphasis was on Whig economic statism: high tariffs, huge subsidies to railroads, [and] public works.” Being a leading lawyer for the big railroads, he was the candidate of the big railroads.
Granville Dodge, an Iowa railroad entrepreneur, delivered the Iowa delegation to Lincoln at the Republican convention. As a reward, “Lincoln appointed Dodge to army general.” Dodge’s job was to drive the Indians from the path of the Union Pacific, “the country’s first heavily subsidized federally chartered transcontinental railroad.” Thus, “conscripted Union troops and hapless taxpayers were coerced into socializing the costs on constructing and operating the Union Pacific.”
Nevertheless, Lincoln’s chief focus was raising taxes — especially tariffs. During his administration, tariff rates greatly increased (consequently, he embargoed the importation of iron and steel). At the beginning of his administration, he was placatory about not interfering with slavery. However, he insisted on collecting tariffs at Southern ports.
“Lincoln was a master politician, which means that he was a consummate conniver, manipulator, and liar.” He deceived the South and maneuvered it into firing the first shot. Thus, he made the South appear to be the aggressor. (He who causes the first shot starts the war, which is often not the one who fires the first shot.)
The Lincoln administration and the Republican-controlled Congress enacted most of the Whig economic programs. At least 10 tariff bills were enacted. Alcohol and tobacco were heavily taxed — “sin” taxes. An “income tax was levied for the first time in American history.” Also, transcontinental railroads received large land grants and monetary subsidies. Moreover, “the government went off the gold standard and virtually nationalized the banking system to establish a machine for printing new money and to provide cheap credit for the business elite.”
Furthermore, Lincoln conscripted a huge army, jailed dissenters and peace advocates, and abolished habeas corpus.
Although Lincoln was not religious, “he adopted all the attitudes and temperament of his evangelical allies.” Personally, he opposed using alcohol and tobacco. Also, he “opposed the private carrying of guns.”
Moreover, he abandoned his fiancee, who came from a humble family, to marry Mary Todd, who was wealthy and whose family was friends of Henry Clay (shades of Newt Gingrich, who divorced his first wife when she was dying of cancer, but who fortunately survived, and divorced his second wife because she objected to sharing him with his mistress, who became his third wife). Further, he “refused to attend his dying father or his father’s funeral.”
Rothbard concludes his discussion of Lincoln by stating:
Lincoln, too, was a typical example of a humanitarian with the guillotine in another dimension: a familiar modern “reform liberal” type whose heart bleeds for and yearns to “uplift” remote mankind, while he lies to and treats abominably actual people whom he knew. And so Abraham Lincoln, in a phrase prefiguring our own beloved Mario Cuomo, declared that the Union was really “a family, bound indissolubly together by the most intimate organic bonds.” Kick your own family, and then transmute familial spiritual feelings toward a hypostatized and mythical entity, “The Union,” which then must be kept intact regardless of concrete human cost or sacrifice.
How can any self-respecting conservative idolize such a despicable charlatan as Lincoln? Nevertheless, they do. It makes one wonder if these Lincoln idolizers are really conservatives. They certainly are not constitutionalists, i.e., advocates of the Constitution of 1789 that the founding fathers gave us.
Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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