John Steele Gordon vs. The Lincoln Cult

John Steele Gordon is one of the most successful “popular historians.”
He has published several very readable historical works focusing on
American business and has written many articles for American Heritage magazine.

As an independent scholar and writer, and NOT a member of the Lincoln Cult,
he is free to pursue the truth about issues surrounding the so-called
“Civil War.” For example, in the 1998 paperback edition of Hamilton’s
Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt (p. 56), he says this
about the aftermath of the South’s protest of the 1828 “Tariff of
Abominations,” which almost caused a secession crisis:

“A direct confrontation, and, quite possibley, civil war, was avoided only when a new tariff
calling for gradually lower rates was adopted. After the crisis
passed, the tariff continued to decline slowly until the Civil War
began for real in 1861. but it remained far higher than required to
fund the government’s usual revenue needs, and THE TARIFF, THEN NEARLY SYNOMYMOUS WITH FEDERAL
TAXES, WAS A PRIME CAUSE OF THE CIVIL WAR” (emphasis added).

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