University for four years. Author or editor of 11 books, several of which nominated for National Book awards, his recent work lincoln and the immigrant is a volume in the series con size Lincoln Library series published by Southern Illinois University Press and was released in september. Of the 16,500 and counting volumes published on Abraham Lincoln, this is the first full length study of its kind. Dr. Silverman received his undergraduate degree at the university of virginia and his graduate degrees at Colorado State and the university of kentucky. He has received many distinguished teaching awards. Is currently working on a companion volume detailing president lincolns reputation in 19th century europe. He also served two elected terms on his local school board. So lets welcome professor jason silverman. [ applause ] thank you so much. That last part about the eight years on the Rockhill School board, forget about all my education. Thats when i learned the real meaning of civil war.
Supervision of democracy because majority rule is the essence of the american project. There are, however, two things wrong with this formulation. First, it is utterly unrealistic and simple minded to think that there is a majority support for or majority interest in or even majority awareness of even a tiny fraction of what modern governments do in dishing out advantages to economic factions. Does anyone really think that when the nashville City Government dispenses favors for the taxi and limo cartels, it is acting on a will of the majority of the citys residents . Can anyone actually believe that a majority of louisianans give a tinkers dam about who sells caskets or arranges flowers . We know because he said so clearly and often that lincoln took his political bearings from the declaration of independence. Which brings me back again to 1854 to the kansas nebraska act and to lincolns noble recoil from the idea of popular sovereignty in the territories regarding slavery. That recoil
Champion of liberty award from the Goldwater Institute among many, many others. . 1986, the wall street journal called him perhaps the most powerful journalist in america and the Chicago Tribune has dubbed him americas leading poet of baseball. For me, three things stand out above and beyond his innumerable intellectual contributions and accolades. First is his television fame. I refer here not to fox news or his incredible run on the abc sunday talk show this week, although i must say i learned a lot about how to think like a lawyer from watching him on that show on sundays in the 1980s and 90s even though he, like Abraham Lincoln, never attended law school. But more important than that. Mr. Will is such a household name that like Mickey Mantle and joe dimaggio he was the subject of a fixation by the crikramer character in an episode of my favorite tv show seinfeld. [ laughter ] second is mr. Wills loyalty and dedication as evidenced by the fact that he is a die hard cubs fan. I have
A signing of the declaration of independence, all sorts of things. One of the silent vignettes was Lincoln Douglas debates and my fourth grade teacher told me you cant be Abraham Lincoln, youre not tall enough. To add insult to injury, she said, you have to be Steven Douglas. So i swore by all that was sacred that i was going to study Abraham Lincoln for the rest of my life and try to make a contribution. Now, i grew up right across the river in alexandria, virginia. Im a product of the virginia public schools, and i can tell you that very little about Abraham Lincoln was said flatteringly in the state of virginia as i was growing up. But those comments were glowing compared to what i encountered when i first came to South Carolina in 1984. So one of my proudest accomplishments is the fact that for 32 years now, i just finished my 32nd year, ive been teaching courses to packed classrooms on Abraham Lincoln in the state of South Carolina, which i dont think is a small accomplishment wha
They should be struck down as violations of a natural right. The right that lincoln understood as the right to free labor. The right that was, of course, at the core of the slavery crisis. It is the unenumerated but surely implied constitutional right to economic liberty. Laws survive and proliferate today because courts have long since, since the new deal stopped doing their duty to defend this economic liberty against the rent seeking enemies. In a sense, the problem began in louisiana 16 years before the monks monastery was founded. It began across from the monastery in new orleans. That city had rewarded some rent seeking butchers a lucrative benefit. The city had created a cartel for them by requiring that all slaughtering be done in their slaughterhouses. Some excluded butchers went to court. All the way to the u. S. Supreme Court Challenging this law. They lost when in the 1873 slaughterhouse cases the court in a 54 decision upheld the law that created the cartel. In doing so, t