The Real DiLorenzo: A ‘Southern Partisan' Interview

The Real DiLorenzo: A ‘Southern Partisan' Interview:

"In a sense, you're not attacking Lincoln, so much as the very foundations of modernAmerican national government.

I call him the Founding Father of big government. It's kind of strange. There are these self-described conservatives who are the big Lincoln idolaters, like the people at the Claremont Institute. But really, when you look at them, they advocate nationalism and executive power. That's one reason why they idolize him so much. That's totally at odds with the Jeffersonian tradition.

On the other side of the coin are the liberal historians. Liberals always have Lincoln and FDR as their number one and number two presidents, because they were the most dictatorial of all our presidents. So, you have this odd mix of liberal and conservative academics, both of whom idolize Lincoln because they really do embrace big government.

Big government conservatives don't mind big government as long as people like themselves are in charge of it. They run the Bush administration, at the moment."