The Real Lincoln can be found at Amazon.com (I don't receive any kickback). The author, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, examines Lincoln's background before he became President to show that he took the office with a pre-conceived plan for the Nation, the Civil War merely being a convenient opportunity to implement it. Dilorenzo draws parallels to several European countries which likewise consolidated power into the hands of the few during the 1800s. The book also introduces the reader to the post-civil war amendments as a constitution for an entirely new nation, not based on the original Constitution of the United States. However, DiLorenzo is too quick to play the "secession card" as a solution to our antebellum problems. It does not matter that several northern States proposed the idea way before the Civil War; there were many other issues to discuss, then and now, before attempting to dissolve the Union in this manner. Like many authors, he thinks the States created the United States and are likewise capable of dissolving it; instead, it was the People who created it in their several State Conventions. Nor is he aware of or willing to discuss the nature of the People who created the States and the United States which would clear up many issues prior to the Civil War. Dilorenzo does explore the other more likely reasons for the Civil War (money, economics, tariffs, and did I mention MONEY?) besides the slavery issue. Lincoln's changing justification of the War is reviewed. The decision to wage war on the southern Civilians is described.

Two highly recommended books are William E. Parrish's Turbulent Partnership: Missouri and the Union, 1861-1865 Amazon.com and Missouri Under Radical Rule, 1865-1870 [Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1965] Amazon.com. These two books cover the history of the State of Missouri during and after the Civil War; they are just a straight historical review of the facts with much of the information documented back to the original writings, orders and court cases of the time. All government officials and especially State Peace Officers need to read these two books to see what it is you are enforcing today. I did not write these two books! If you were taught State history back in grade school when you certainly could not appreciate it or were asleep in high school or your teachers didn't think it was necessary to go into it, you owe it to yourself to read these two books. Real Eye Openers. You don't know where you're going unless you know where you started and where you changed course. The author does not draw conclusions nor expound on the implications of the facts but the history is laid out for your study and informed discussion. Several parallels most likely can be found in your State's history when you know for what you are looking.

Speaking of State history, your State Supreme Court case books may contain extra information besides the court cases reported during and after the Civil War. Many conspiracy theories circulate but only one is actually reported in these case books. Read them!

The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, Amazon.com

I haven't read it yet but Amity Shlaes pondered during a public appearance, if person A wants to give money to person B, why is person A able to compel person C to pay, too? This was a question about how the New Deal was able to force people to contribute to an insurance or welfare scheme known as Social Security. She said she didn't know.

The answer to this puzzle is the manner in which people join Social Security. The first attempt at social security legislation was ruled unlawful because it was a compelled system; person A was trying to force person C to participate. The second attempt, used today, depends on voluntary means to join social security; person A tricks person C to enroll, who thereafter is compelled to give to person B.

Although everything about Social Security from the identifying number to the requirement of it to feed yourself is mandatory, there is still one thing voluntary about it and that is joining it. No one holds a gun to your head when you sign the application; that part is totally voluntary. Yes, the administrators will make your life miserable and someday impossible without the number but the initial voluntary ceding of right is the point at which the lawfulness of the system should be tested. The cases like U.S. vs. Lee, which lead people to believe there is no avoiding the Social Security system, were decided AFTER Lee had already, voluntarily, applied for membership in Social Security; thereafter, he was just kicking against the rules imposed on it. A true legal test of the requirement to belong to Social Security is to not be a member of it (or rescind membership for those who have the legal ability to do so) and then contest it.

What is important about membership in Social Security? Once you get past the part about not knowing if there will be anything in it for you when you retire, there are more important legal aspects to consider.

First, how can you morally justify the government taking money from one man and giving it to another? How can the government give you someone else's property? The only justification for this is if YOU have first given the government permission to take your property and give it to someone else. This you have done by joining Social Security under which your life is pooled together with the lives of other people who have likewise joined that system. Your assets are commingled with theirs and are disposed of at the whim of Congress. Joining Social Security obligates you to pay both the Social Security tax and the Income Tax.

Second, Social Security is a power of attorney scheme which operates on the national level. Every aspect of your life comes under scrutiny because it can impact the financial security of the system. If you've ever wondered why Congress regulates things all the way down to the city level, it is because most people have joined Congress' private national club. You might consider that you have rights, but joining the Social Security system clouds that issue so you only have privileges and immunities as granted by Congress. Your rights rise no higher than an Act of Congress. No court case ever activates the Judicial Power of the US nor the Judicial Power of your State; the only process is legislative, administrative process because you are an internal member of government, no longer a Citizen in control of Government.

All issues are affected by this inferior legal status. Abortion? Having extra children puts a financial burden on the system. Gun control? Use of firearms affects the financial interest of the system if someone gets hurt. Home Schooling? It affects the continued security of the system. North Korea, Vietnam and the Draft? It affects the commingling of social security with other countries' systems under Title 42. No seatbelt? It affects the financial interest of the system if you are hurt.

No case since the mass enrollment in Social Security has ever activated the judicial power of any court. All of these cases have been decided administratively, not based on the rights of a Citizen but based on the persons involved being internal members of an Act of Congress. Both the Congress and State Legislatures have systematically removed the judicial power from courts inferior to the US supreme Court and the States' supreme courts; this was done by misrepresenting the effect of amendments to the US constitution and the States' constitutions. Even the judicial power of those remaining courts is suspect because of the reduced legal requirements to hold the offices of those courts. One thing for sure, no person since 1935 (enrollment in Social Security) has had the status to invoke the judicial power for their relief.

The clamour for national security is outside the gate but the destruction has been occuring for a long time deep within the Nation's walls. It will be interesting to read if Amity Shales' future books go into the legal cases during the New Deal era to see how a Nation of People were ensnared by their representatives.

Forge of Empires by Michael Knox Beran, Amazon.com, preview of book at books.google.com.

The topic of this book has been mentioned in The Real Lincoln, reviewed above. Lincoln's Civil War is a focal point in our history but the public is not often told of similar events, for the same objects, which occurrred simultaneously in other countries. Here is the beginning of Beran's Note to the Reader, pages xiii to xiv.

	"In Patriot Gore, Edmund Wilson's book on the literature of the American Civil War, there is a passage in which Wilson compares Abraham Lincoln to Otto von Bismarck and Vladimir Lenin." 'The impulse to unification was strong in the nineteenth century; it has continued to be strong in this; and if we would grasp the significance of the Civil War in relation to the history of our time, we should consider Abraham Lincoln in connection with other leaders who have been engaged in similar tasks. ... Lincoln and Bismarck and Lenin were all men of unusual intellect and formidable tenacity of character, of historical imagination combined with powerful will. They were all, in their several ways, idealists, who put their ideals before everything else. All three were solitary men, who lived with their concentration of purpose.'
	"... Hundreds of books have analyzed the rise and fall of free states during the modern period, and have described the emergence of the authoritarian regimes; but none, I think, has placed a sufficient empasis on the revolutions of 1861-1871, a decade which forms one of the most interesting chapters in the annals of human freedom, and which at the same time witnessed the emergence of novel philosopies of terror and coercion."

Beron's book deals with Abraham Lincoln, Otto von Bismarck and Tsar Alexander II. Perhaps he thinks, of the three empires, the United States produced human freedom while other empires did not. Perhaps time will reveal that terror and coercion only took a little longer to develope in the United States, likewise its export. It is easy to examine other countries at arm's length but it is almost impossible to examine our own up close.

If I get around to reading this book, the burning question I will have, does the author go into the participation of the Congress and State Legislatures in the process of destroying one nation and building a substitute. At the cessation of hostilities of the Civil War, our Nation was left in the same position as it was before the hostilities began. The southern States had not seceded, no war was declared against them, no war was won and no treaty concluded the non-existant war. No legal issue was settled. Even if Lincoln supposedly freed the slaves by his Emmancipation Proclamation, Congress and the State Legislatures were not willing to let that issue reside in the executive branch of the government. By his physical destruction of the South, Lincoln only set the Nation up for legal destruction by Legislative branches through the Reconstruction Acts and the post-Civil War amendments.

See also the downloadable books page.

P.S. There is no end to the number of books I'd have to buy, store and read to point out the same points over and over so I hope the informed readers of these books will correspond about their findings.

(This page contains many subjects under developement which are not yet linked to other pages. Please check back for further progress. The underlined words DO link to other pages.)