New Response at Saberpoint! Stogie Got Game!

Word brah, the old Stogie's got game!

See his classic left-wing "fisking" here: "A Point by Point Rebuttal of Donald Douglas on 'Why the Civil War Was Not About Slavery'."

And my response:

Stogie: Pounding your chest and harrumphing about how you're "winning" the argument is hardly convincing, and actually kind of pathetic.

I don't think you know what a straw man is. This so-called "myth" you talk about isn't part of the mainstream history and standard interpretations of the antebellum institution of slavery, especially conservative interpretations. You're clearing grasping. Further, I don't think you know what federalism is, and you completely ignore my discussion of congressional action on slavery since 1800. You ignore it because it doesn't fit your narrative of the innocent South and the evil North. Just because you hate federalism, and especially the doctrine of national supremacy emerging out of McCulloch, that doesn't mean you can blow off such central historical moments in American political development. In that you're like Livingston, who completely decontextualizes the issues and distorts and lies about what Lincoln believed and actually said.

Plus, it's a false premise that "Congress did nothing" to end slavery. Congress continued to regulate slavery right through the 1850s. Remember, as you say, the North was racist just like the South. Abolition wasn't the burning issue for anyone. What was burning is the balance of power in Congress, and the desire of folks like Lincoln to keep slavery out of the North --- because of political questions of power. They did this, of course, because they simultaneously believed Jeffersonian notions of inalienable rights. Racist ideologies among Northerners do nothing to change that fact. Livingston's argument is lame. It's like name-calling. You're doing the same thing, and it's childish. Both you and Livingston distort Lincoln's views on slavery and you ignore his actual words. That's what leftists do. You're both Gramscian and Derridean in constructing false narratives that bear no resemblance to reality. I quoted Lincoln's own words and contextualized them the way Lincoln himself did in his 1862 address to Congress. Just because you don't like it isn't a justification to be dishonest about not only what he said, but about my analysis as well.

Livingston indeed does discuss "presentist ideological agendas." Talking about Senator James DeWolff of Rhode Island, Livingston writes that "it is difficult for us to­day to read the expression anti-slavery without importing our own 21st centu­ry moral sensibilities into it." That is presentist epistemology, and those who employ it are taking history out of context (see historian Gordon Wood, "History in Context": http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/history-context_850083.html). Unfortunately, Livingston's piece employs the very same kind of presentism to decontextualize the development of slavery in antebellum America. He does this throughout his discussion of moral philosophies. Are you sure you've read this article carefully, Stogie, or is your response just more boilerplate "Lincoln is evil" ideology lifted from the radical libertarian fever swamps?

Well, Stogie, the piece certainly is an "ideological screed," as I've shown throughout my essay, but since you share that ideology, you're forced to desperately defend it. Indeed, despite your furtive attempts to rebut Livingston's lies and decontexualization, you simply declare victory, and write that my comments "are those of someone losing an argument, and knows it." Actually, I don't know it. I'm only going on to say what I think of Livingston's writing, and I don't think well of it. He's a hack historian with an ideological ax to grind.

And by the way, my so called "ad hominem" arguments are not in fact the key arguments against this hack. I noted that I'd append a "bloggy" section simply because there's so much low hanging fruit. You yourself have slammed Lew Rockwell numerous times, so it's no surprise you'd blow off Livingston's fringe connections as "irrelevant." I think you're a good man, and I know you're better that that from reading this blog for 8 years.

In any case, thanks for the discussion. I'm learning a lot, as always!

More to come, especially if Stogie's still got game!

PREVIOUSLY: ICYMI, "Response to Stogie at Saberpoint and 'Why the Civil War Was Not About Slavery...'"