LINCOLN'S DICTUM In the final Lincoln-Douglas debate, Lincoln claimed that the issues over which the two candidates had sparred, were not just issues of his time, rather, Lincoln believed that these debates were small battles in the larger war between individual rights and the divine right of kings.

Seventh and Last Debate with Stephen A. Douglas, Alton, Illinois, October 15, 1858
"That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, [my emphasis] 'You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race [or other people], it is the same tyrannical principle."

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One form of Hidden Slavery:

• most of America's independent inventors lose their patent rights in the courts
• American Contract Law permits corporations to fight independent inventors (and their inheritors) for up to 99 years, until the independent side can no longer afford legal action
• today's Americans and The Media ignore the fact that America's most famous inventor, Thomas Edison (x-y), spent more money defending his patents in the courts than he made from liscenses
• today's Americans and The Media ignore past inventors (especially women and African-Americans) who endowed our lives: they work and toil while we eat their bread
• historians denigrate invention by citing as the only "Industrial Revolution" what should be called The Thermodynomic Industtrial Revolution, beginning in 1776 with an effective steam engine, ignoring The Mechanical Industrial Revolution of 12th-13th centuries when monks built thousands of wind mills and water mills over Europe and Britain (cited in The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages, J. Gimpel (1977); also ignoring The Electrical Industrial Revolution, beginning in 1880 when Thomas Edison wired the streets of NYC; ignoring The Electronic Industrial Revolution, beginning with 1920's radio stations; and The Photonic-Nanotech Industrial Revolution, begun recently
• today's Americans and The Media ignore Sam Slater (x-y), The Father of the American Industrial Revolution, whose inventiveness founded the first major American industry: textiles
• A 1980's newspaper reported that the only kitchen convenience not created by indpendnets in basement or garage was the garbage disposal
• A 1980's TV network program, "If Japan Can Do It, Why Cam't We?", reported many cases wherein American inventors were ignored in America but paid and honored in other countries
• in 2002, the only extant history of early American inventors, Yankee Science in the Making (1958), was written by a Dutch-born mathematician, Dirk Sruik
• many inventors listed by Struik invented guns for the American Revolution and for developing our new country, but America's two largest gun-firms are now owned by British interests, a fact ignored by The National Rifle Association as well as by Americans and The Media
• the 2002 World Almanac lists only one-fourth as many inventions from independent American inventors after WWII as it lists for a comparable period prior to WWII