Learning from Lincoln: Both Onscreen and Off

What is it about Abraham Lincoln that has captured the hearts and minds of the American public since his assassination nearly 150 years ago? After all, one could argue -- rather persuasively -- that our 16^th president was the least qualified candidate ever elected to high national office; in fact, his public service record included just four terms in the Illinois state legislative, one unremarkable term in the House of Representatives, and two unsuccessful bids for the US Senate. In addition, he had virtually no executive experience and, as his contemporaries invariably pointed out, Lincoln seemed wholly unfit to lead the nation during the chaotic and consequential times in which he lived.

And yet what’s so striking about Steven Spielberg’s outstanding film “Lincoln” is the eponymous hero’s latent political acumen. Since his death in 1865, Abraham Lincoln has been immortalized as the “Great Emancipator” and “The Rail-Splitter” -- two larger-than-life epithets that continue to inspire our collective imaginations. But, as Spielberg sharply demonstrates (through the talented Irish-born actor Daniel Day-Lewis) Lincoln was, after all, a human being -- a man who struggled, fought and ultimately died for the one indispensable cause that meant everything to him: the right for a free people to govern themselves.

Historians such as Eric Foner and the late David Herbert Donald have written important and absorbing works about Lincoln’s life and legacy. His empathy, keen wit, good-humored temperament, and passion for storytelling are only a few of the amiable characteristics evinced in the film. But perhaps Lincoln’s greatest quality -- as painstakingly revealed in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s absorbing book “Team of Rivals,” on which the aforementioned movie is partly based -- was his ability to recognize and seize opportune political moments.

Far from being the country bumpkin and second-rate lawyer often depicted in the contemporary newspaper articles of his day -- Lincoln was in fact a shrewd and cunning politician. And this trait is manifested brilliantly in the film when he decides -- against the wishes of some of his most ardent supporters -- to pursue a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.

At the very beginning of the movie, there’s a seemingly inconsequential scene in which Secretary of State William Seward (ably portrayed by David Strathairn) attempts to convince his boss that mobilizing support for a 13^th Amendment to abolish slavery was not only political suicide, but would be met -- inevitably -- with harsh and vigorous criticism from House Democrats. Lincoln, however, with his characteristic soft-spoken charm, replies coolly: “I like our chances now.”

While this conversation probably never actually took place (indeed, Goodwin makes no mention of it in “Team of Rivals”), it is a simple yet revealing response. This echoes Lincoln’s patience to wait for the appropriate tactical moment to announce his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to the general public in September 1862 (after the Union army’s long-awaited victory at Antietam). He likewise, in this situation, understood the importance of timing. And with the 1864 lame-duck session in full swing (and the public’s increasingly growing desire to finally settle the slavery question -- in Lincoln‘s words -- “for all coming time” before the war ended and the Emancipation Proclamation became null and void), the 16th president recognized that now was the decisive moment to act.

Eschewing the initial advice of his supporters, he shrewdly rounded up the requisite votes (by any and all means necessary) from an unlikely coalition of former Whigs, conservative Republicans, and War Democrats. In the end, after several weeks of cajoling, lobbying and politicking, the amendment passed by a razor-thin margin of two votes in a Congress of 184 Representatives.

One need only spend a few hours watching “Lincoln” (a masterful and deeply engrossing film that I encourage all Americans to go and see) to understand why our 16^th president was by all accounts “a political genius.”

Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has reportedly invited Steven Spielberg to screen “Lincoln” in the U.S. Senate Chamber later this month. Perhaps this might just do some good, and impel Senate Republicans and Democrats to finally put aside their differences (at least until the looming “fiscal cliff” fiasco is averted) for the sake of the nation.

After all, given the grossly partisan antics we’ve seen thus far, it certainly can’t hurt.

In evaluating Constitutional interpretation, the views of Jefferson, considering our political Party positions today, especially in light of the movie being discussed here, as well as O'Reilly's Lincoln book, we might re-read Lincoln's letter to Henry L. Pierce and Others:

Springfield, Ills, April 6, 1859

Messrs. Henry L. Pierce, & others.

Gentlemen

Your kind note inviting me to attend a Festival in Boston, on the 13th. Inst. in honor of the birth-day of Thomas Jefferson, was duly received. My engagements are such that I can not attend.

Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago, two great political parties were first formed in this country, that Thomas Jefferson was the head of one of them, and Boston the head-quarters of the other, it is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from the party opposed to Jefferson should now be celebrating his birthday in their own original seat of empire, while those claiming political descent from him have nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere.

Remembering too, that the Jefferson party were formed upon its supposed superior devotion to the personal rights of men, holding the rights of property to be secondary only, and greatly inferior, and then assuming that the so-called democracy of to-day, are the Jefferson, and their opponents, the anti-Jefferson parties, it will be equally interesting to note how completely the two have changed hands as to the principle upon which they were originally supposed to be divided.

The democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man's right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.

I remember once being much amused at seeing two partially intoxicated men engage in a fight with their great-coats on, which fight, after a long, and rather harmless contest, ended in each having fought himself out of his own coat, and into that of the other. If the two leading parties of this day are really identical with the two in the days of Jefferson and Adams, they have perfomed the same feat as the two drunken men.

But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation.

One would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.

And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of success.

One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities"; another bluntly calls them "self evident lies"; and still others insidiously argue that they apply only to "superior races."

These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect--the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads, plotting against the people. They are the van-guard--the miners, and sappers--of returning despotism.

We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us.

This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.

All honor to Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.

Your obedient Servant
A. Lincoln--

(Bolding added for emphasis)

Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler.

Source for this reproduction of the letter is

Today's ". . . van-guard--the miners, and sappers--of returning despotism. . . ." appears to be the so-called "progressive movement," with its intent to plan, control, manage, and rule a people who, for over 200 years, claimed individual liberty and Creator-endowed life, liberty and rights as protected by their Constitution.

Here's the most important thing we can learn from the former president though it may be too late. Abe will explain from "the other side."

You initiated a policy to tolerate the Marxist-Alinsky radicals and let them rant; not only has it not ceased but was constantly augmented by decades of infiltration and indoctrination. You now have two Americas. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half statist and half free; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

Obama is a biological-ideological issue of the 1960s Marxist-Alinsky campus radical, psycho spoiled brats..

and here they all are. The ruling elite New Normal.

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