For God, Family and Republic

On Lew Rockwell's blog, Thomas DiLorenzo tells us something surprising that government school history books:

Few Americans know this, but there is growing acceptance among "Civil War" historians that Lincoln's assassination on Good Friday in 1865 was probably revenge for Lincoln's own foiled plot to assassinate Jefferson Davis. It's known as the "Dahlgren affair," so named after Union Army Col. Ulric Dahlgren, who was killed on March 2, 1864 during a failed raid on Richmond. On his body were found orders to assassinate Davis. The government originally denied this, but today, distinguished historians such as Stephen W. Sears, author of a fantastic book on the Battle of Chancellorsville, among others, insist that the story is true. The papers were authentic. There is also much agreement that this is what motivated John Wilkes Booth.

Regicide is immoral, but it was the modus operandi of the Lincoln administration. Shall we say the administration reaped what it sowed? And Lincoln's assassin Booth should be rightly condemned for making a martyr out of a tyrant.

Needless to say, the gatekeepers to the Lincoln myth contrived a lionized saint who was martyred for the Union in their history books. Constitutional government, and the compact nature of the Union were lost. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed,

The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and, in uniting together, they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so; and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right. In order to enable the Federal Government easily to conquer the resistance which may be offered to it by any one of its subjects, it would be necessary that one or more of them should be specially interested in the existence of the Union, as has frequently been the case in the history of confederations.

As Confederate General Pat Cleburne said,

Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.

This has very much been the case with establishment history, and especially the textbooks celebrated in academia, though many southern partisans and copperheads in the north have risen to tell the other side of the story.

Related Articles:
America's Civil War magazine - The Dahlgren Papers Revisited: The mystery surrounding documents detailing a Union plan to murder Jefferson Davis is put to rest.

U.S. News & World Report - Purloined poison letters: Fake or real, they raised hell