[M]y thesis is that Lincoln devoted twenty-eight years of his life to an economic agenda of mercantilist high tariffs, pork in the form of internal improvements, and the promotion of a central bank. The basic strategy of this economic agenda was to allow the Republican Party to buy votes from protectionist manufacturers, mining and timber companies that wanted cheap federal land, subsidy-seeking railroad companies, and white laborers who did not want competition from freed blacks or slaves.
[...]
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, he jailed political opponents and newspapers writers, and violated the letter and spirit of the Constitution at every turn¹

1. Thomas DiLorenzo – Confronting the Lincoln Cult [↩]