The Real lincoln by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

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DiLorenzo, Thomas J. The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002-2003.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo is an author known for his many works of the history of the United States. He graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with a Ph.D. in economics. He has spent many years as a researcher and a teacher, working at many universities and institutes. Many of the books he has written involve our sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln. His book The Real Lincoln focuses on President Lincoln during the time leading up to the Civil War. From slavery, to saving the Union, to the end of Federalism, this book reveals Lincoln's beliefs and actions throughout this time period. DiLorenzo's purpose of writing The Real Lincoln is not to tell about Lincoln's personal life, whether he married and had children or not, or his death; his purpose is to elaborate on how Lincoln helped grant the right of secession and his efforts to save the Union.
According to DiLorenzo's book, President Lincoln was a very misinterpreted man. Today, most people know him as a staunch abolitionist and “The Great Emancipator,” but DiLorenzo claims differently. He claims Lincoln to be into politics and into acting like a politician: saying one thing to an audience and saying something different to another (DiLorenzo 2002-2003, 10). While people today understand him to have been a supporter of the black race, DiLorenzo quotes a debate of Lincoln's in 1858 that reveals quite the opposite: "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races" (11). His intentions were to colonize the African-Americans. He wrote a Proclamation, the Emancipation P...

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Works Cited

Belz, Herman. "The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, by Thomas J. DiLorenzo; When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, by Charles Adams". Michigan Publishing. (Winter 2003). http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0024.106/--real-lincoln-a-new- look-at-abraham-lincoln-his-agenda?rgn=main;view=fulltext (accessed May 7, 2014).
Blumenthal, Sidney. "Lincoln Plays to Win". Newsweek LLC. (October 22, 2012): Vol. 160. Issue 17. p32. http://web.b.ebscohost.com/hrc/detail?vid=8&sid=4f0f5412-e963-44c9- bbcef20181e43d00%40sessionmgr113&hid=113&bdata=JnNpdGU9aHJjLWxpdmU %3d#db=khh&AN=82575921 (accessed May 7, 2014).
"Research Fellow." The Independent Institute. http://www.independent.org/aboutus/ person_detail.asp?id=544 (accessed May 7, 2014).

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