Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, was also the Great Centralizer whose policies undermined the decentralized, federal system established by the Founders. Indeed, Lincoln saw emancipation primarily as a means of saving the Union and establishing a mercantilist empire he and his forerunner Henry Clay called the “American System.”
Thomas J. DiLorenzo is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, and president of the Mises Institute
American HistoryGovernment and PoliticsGovernment PowerLaw and LibertyPhilosophy and ReligionSocialism, Communism, and Collectivism
Other Independent Review articles by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
Fall 2010 The Culture of Violence in the American West: Myth versus Reality