Posted on 02/18/2005 11:27:18 PM PST by churchillbuff
The key to understanding Lincoln's philosophy of statesmanship is that he always sought the meeting point between what was right in theory and what could be achieved in practice. By Dinesh D'Souza
Most Americans -- including most historians -- regard Abraham Lincoln as the nation's greatest president. But in recent years powerful movements have gathered, both on the political right and the left, to condemn Lincoln as a flawed and even wicked man.
For both camps, the debunking of Lincoln usually begins with an exposé of the "Lincoln myth," which is well described in William Lee Miller's 2002 book Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography. How odd it is, Miller writes, that an "unschooled" politician "from the raw frontier villages of Illinois and Indiana" could become such a great president. "He was the myth made real," Miller writes, "rising from an actual Kentucky cabin made of actual Kentucky logs all the way to the actual White House."
Lincoln's critics have done us all a service by showing that the actual author of the myth is Abraham Lincoln himself. It was Lincoln who, over the years, carefully crafted the public image of himself as Log Cabin Lincoln, Honest Abe and the rest of it. Asked to describe his early life, Lincoln answered, "the short and simple annals of the poor," referring to Thomas Gray's poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." Lincoln disclaimed great aspirations for himself, noting that if people did not vote for him, he would return to obscurity, for he was, after all, used to disappointments.
These pieties, however, are inconsistent with what Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, said about him: "His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest." Admittedly in the ancient world ambition was often viewed as a great vice. In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Brutus submits his reason for joining the conspiracy against Caesar: his fear that Caesar had grown too ambitious. But as founding father and future president James Madison noted in The Federalist, the American system was consciously designed to attract ambitious men. Such ambition was presumed natural to a politician and favorable to democracy as long as it sought personal distinction by promoting the public good through constitutional means.
What unites the right-wing and left-wing attacks on Lincoln, of course, is that they deny that Lincoln respected the law and that he was concerned with the welfare of all. The right-wing school -- made up largely of Southerners and some libertarians -- holds that Lincoln was a self-serving tyrant who rode roughshod over civil liberties, such as the right to habeas corpus. Lincoln is also accused of greatly expanding the size of the federal government. Some libertarians even charge -- and this is not intended as a compliment -- that Lincoln was the true founder of the welfare state. His right-wing critics say that despite his show of humility, Lincoln was a megalomaniacal man who was willing to destroy half the country to serve his Caesarian ambitions. In an influential essay, the late Melvin E. Bradford, an outspoken conservative, excoriated Lincoln as a moral fanatic who, determined to enforce his Manichaean vision -- one that sees a cosmic struggle between good and evil -- on the country as a whole, ended up corrupting American politics and thus left a "lasting and terrible impact on the nation's destiny."
Although Bradford viewed Lincoln as a kind of manic abolitionist, many in the right-wing camp deny that the slavery issue was central to the Civil War. Rather, they insist, the war was driven primarily by economic motives. Essentially, the industrial North wanted to destroy the economic base of the South. Historian Charles Adams, in When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, published in 2000, contends that the causes leading up to the Civil War had virtually nothing to do with slavery.
This approach to rewriting history has been going on for more than a century. Alexander Stephens, former vice president of the Confederacy, published a two-volume history of the Civil War between 1868 and 1870 in which he hardly mentioned slavery, insisting that the war was an attempt to preserve constitutional government from the tyranny of the majority. But this is not what Stephens said in the great debates leading up to the war. In his "Cornerstone" speech, delivered in Savannah, Ga., on March 21, 1861, at the same time that the South was in the process of seceding, Stephens said that the American Revolution had been based on a premise that was "fundamentally wrong." That premise was, as Stephens defined it, "the assumption of equality of the races." Stephens insisted that instead: "Our new [Confederate] government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea. Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man. Slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great and moral truth."
This speech is conspicuously absent from the right's revisionist history. And so are the countless affirmations of black inferiority and the "positive good" of slavery -- from John C. Calhoun's attacks on the Declaration of Independence to South Carolina Senator James H. Hammond's insistence that "the rock of Gibraltar does not stand so firm on its basis as our slave system." It is true, of course, that many whites who fought on the Southern side in the Civil War did not own slaves. But, as Calhoun himself pointed out in one speech, they too derived an important benefit from slavery: "With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and the poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals." Calhoun's point is that the South had conferred on all whites a kind of aristocracy of birth, so that even the most wretched and degenerate white man was determined in advance to be better and more socially elevated than the most intelligent and capable black man. That's why the poor whites fought -- to protect that privilege.
Contrary to Bradford's high-pitched accusations, Lincoln approached the issue of slavery with prudence and moderation. This is not to say that he waffled on the morality of slavery. "You think slavery is right, and ought to be extended," Lincoln wrote Stephens on the eve of the war, "while we think it is wrong, and ought to be restricted." As Lincoln clearly asserts, it was not his intention to get rid of slavery in the Southern states. Lincoln conceded that the American founders had agreed to tolerate slavery in the Southern states, and he confessed that he had no wish and no power to interfere with it there. The only issue -- and it was an issue on which Lincoln would not bend -- was whether the federal government could restrict slavery in the new territories. This was the issue of the presidential campaign of 1860; this was the issue that determined secession and war.
Lincoln argued that the South had no right to secede -- that the Southern states had entered the Union as the result of a permanent compact with the Northern states. That Union was based on the principle of majority rule, with constitutional rights carefully delineated for the minority. Lincoln insisted that since he had been legitimately elected, and since the power to regulate slavery in the territories was nowhere proscribed in the Constitution, Southern secession amounted to nothing more than one group's decision to leave the country because it did not like the results of a presidential election, and no constitutional democracy could function under such an absurd rule. Of course the Southerners objected that they should not be forced to live under a regime that they considered tyrannical, but Lincoln countered that any decision to dissolve the original compact could only occur with the consent of all the parties involved. Once again, it makes no sense to have such agreements when any group can unilaterally withdraw from them and go its own way.
The rest of the libertarian and right-wing case against Lincoln is equally without merit. Yes, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and arrested Southern sympathizers, but let us not forget that the nation was in a desperate war in which its very survival was at stake. Discussing habeas corpus, Lincoln insisted that it made no sense for him to protect this one constitutional right and allow the very Union established by the Constitution, the very framework for the protection of all rights, to be obliterated. Of course the federal government expanded during the Civil War, as it expanded during the Revolutionary War, and during World War II. Governments need to be strong to fight wars. The evidence for the right-wing insistence that Lincoln was the founder of the modern welfare state stems from the establishment, begun during his administration, of a pension program for Union veterans and support for their widows and orphans. Those were, however, programs aimed at a specific, albeit large, part of the population. The welfare state came to America in the 20th century. Franklin Roosevelt should be credited, or blamed, for that. He institutionalized it, and Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon expanded it.
The left-wing group of Lincoln critics, composed of liberal scholars and social activists, is harshly critical of Lincoln on the grounds that he was a racist who did not really care about ending slavery. Their indictment of Lincoln is that he did not oppose slavery outright, only the extension of it, that he opposed laws permitting intermarriage and even opposed social and political equality between the races. If the right-wingers disdain Lincoln for being too aggressively antislavery, the left-wingers scorn him for not being antislavery enough. Both groups, however, agree that Lincoln was a self-promoting hypocrite who said one thing while doing another.
Some of Lincoln's defenders have sought to vindicate him from these attacks by contending that he was a "man of his time." This will not do, because there were several persons of that time, notably the social-reformer Grimké sisters, Angelina and Sarah, and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, who forthrightly and unambiguously attacked slavery and called for immediate and complete abolition. In one of his speeches, Sumner said that while there are many issues on which political men can and should compromise, slavery is not such an issue: "This will not admit of compromise. To be wrong on this is to be wholly wrong. It is our duty to defend freedom, unreservedly, and careless of the consequences."
Lincoln's modern liberal critics are, whether they know it or not, the philosophical descendants of Sumner. One cannot understand Lincoln without understanding why he agreed with Sumner's goals while consistently opposing the strategy of the abolitionists. The abolitionists, Lincoln thought, approached the restricting or ending of slavery with self-righteous moral display. They wanted to be in the right and -- as Sumner himself says -- damn the consequences. In Lincoln's view, abolition was a noble sentiment, but abolitionist tactics, such as burning the Constitution and advocating violence, were not the way to reach their goal.
We can answer the liberal critics by showing them why Lincoln's understanding of slavery, and his strategy for defeating it, was superior to that of Sumner and his modern-day followers. Lincoln knew that the statesman, unlike the moralist, cannot be content with making the case against slavery. He must find a way to implement his principles to the degree that circumstances permit. The key to understanding Lincoln is that he always sought the meeting point between what was right in theory and what could be achieved in practice. He always sought the common denominator between what was good to do and what the people would go along with. In a democratic society this is the only legitimate way to advance a moral agenda.
Consider the consummate skill with which Lincoln deflected the prejudices of his supporters without yielding to them. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates during the race for the Illinois Senate, Stephen Douglas repeatedly accused Lincoln of believing that blacks and whites were intellectually equal, of endorsing full political rights for blacks, and of supporting "amalgamation" or intermarriage between the races. If these charges could be sustained, or if large numbers of people believed them to be true, then Lincoln's career was over. Even in the free state of Illinois -- as throughout the North -- there was widespread opposition to full political and social equality for blacks.
Lincoln handled this difficult situation by using a series of artfully conditional responses. "Certainly the Negro is not our equal in color -- perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man. In pointing out that more has been given to you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little which has been given to him. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy." Notice that Lincoln only barely recognizes the prevailing prejudice. He never acknowledges black inferiority; he merely concedes the possibility. And the thrust of his argument is that even if blacks were inferior, that is not a warrant for taking away their rights.
Facing the charge of racial amalgamation, Lincoln said, "I protest against that counterfeit logic which concludes that because I do not want a black woman for a slave, I must necessarily want her for a wife." Lincoln is not saying that he wants, or does not want, a black woman for his wife. He is neither supporting nor opposing racial intermarriage. He is simply saying that from his antislavery position it does not follow that he endorses racial amalgamation. Elsewhere Lincoln turned antiblack prejudices against Douglas by saying that slavery was the institution that had produced the greatest racial intermixing and the largest number of mulattoes.
Lincoln was exercising the same prudent statesmanship when he wrote to New York newspaper publisher Horace Greeley asserting: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that." The letter was written on August 22, 1862, almost a year and a half after the Civil War broke out, when the South was gaining momentum and the outcome was far from certain. From the time of secession, Lincoln was desperately eager to prevent border states such as Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri from seceding. These states had slavery, and Lincoln knew that if the issue of the war was cast openly as the issue of slavery, his chances of keeping the border states in the Union were slim. And if all the border states seceded, Lincoln was convinced, and rightly so, that the cause of the Union was gravely imperiled.
Moreover, Lincoln was acutely aware that many people in the North were vehemently antiblack and saw themselves as fighting to save their country rather than to free slaves. Lincoln framed the case against the Confederacy in terms of saving the Union in order to maintain his coalition -- a coalition whose victory was essential to the antislavery cause. And ultimately it was because of Lincoln that slavery came to an end. That is why the right wing can never forgive him.
In my view, Lincoln was the true "philosophical statesman," one who was truly good and truly wise. Standing in front of his critics, Lincoln is a colossus, and all of the Lilliputian arrows hurled at him bounce harmlessly to the ground. It is hard to put any other president -- not even George Washington -- in the same category as Abraham Lincoln. He is simply the greatest practitioner of democratic statesmanship that America and the world have yet produced.
Interesting post, sheltonmac. At the most basic human level, practical details notwithstanding, slavery is bad for those who are owned, and bad for those who own.
However, if the outrage expended on dead American slaveowners were instead directed at living Asian, Arab, and African slaveowners, I'd be much more impressed.
Arkinsaw-
Great reply (# 247)!!!
Concerning Stephen's "Cornerstone" speech, I think it is relevant, in the case of politicians, to realize that they- whether northern or Southern- often say things to get a RESPONSE. Sometimes we should give little weight to what politicians SAY,and look far more closely to what politicians DO! This is a point that Tom DiLorenzo forces home in an excellent manner in "The Real Lincoln". Stephens did indeed SAY that. BUT----
Since the northern controlled Congress was willing to keep the federal government from EVER interferring with slavery, and if Lincoln PUBLICLY STATED that he supported State's rights on the issue, that he supported the fugitive slave laws, and he even SUPPORTED THIS AMENDMENT, then did the Southern states truly secede over the issue?????
Truly, it makes a MASSIVE, almost UNDENIABLE CASE that the Southern states NEVER seceded over slavery, REGUARDLESS what Stephens or anyone may have said. Lincoln and the north would do ANYTHING to keep the South in the Union-- even a Constitutional guarrantee to prevent the feds from EVER interferring with slavery!!!! This also fully supports the view that the TARRIFF, NOT SLAVERY, caused the war!
There is another, perhaps even more important point that CANNOT BE OVEREMPHSISED here, that is simply LOST on most people: SECESSION did NOT cause the war. Lincoln could have simply followed the principles of self-determination laid out in the Declaration of Independence, and allowed the South to go freely. He would have been following the clear political inspiration and indeed, the very words of Presidents Jefferson and Madison. But he did NOT.
In using force to FORCE a government on Southerners that we no longer desired, Lincoln joined the list of tyrrants who have acted in similar manner, like King George, the Caesars, Krushev, and Chairman Mao. And that is the REAL story of the war that is completely LOST on most people.
I agree 100%.
The same could be said of Robert Lee, Jefferson Davis, and just about every other confederate leader.
"The idea that the Civil War was primarilyabout anything other than slavery is just ridiculous."
Zack, I'm sorry, but your sentiment flies directly in the face of what Lincoln and the entire northern controlled Congress said in 1861. In fact, they were willing to guarrantee slavery FOREVER if the South would stay in the Union. Please see my post # 236 to get the facts. The Joint Resolution of War even said specifically that the war had nothing to do with slavery. Lincoln even specifically said in his Inaugural speech that there would be no war as long as the states collected the tarriffs.
Your opinions may make you feel better, but they have no basis in documented history, according to your own heros. Or maybe you can tell us why Lincoln and the entire northern Congress LIED in 1861?????
And if the UN commanded US troops to fire on New York City your response would be ....?
Where in the Constitution is the anti-secession clause, again?
Actually, he's referring to real, documented history.
In the 1930's, the federal government sent out teams of people to interview the old, former slaves. These interviews are part of a fascinating and wonderful historical record commonly referred to as the Slave Narratives. You can read them, unedited, here:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html
I would encourage you to read a random sample of 10 of these at your liesure. You will be SHOCKED at what you read.
In my statistical sample, only about 10% reported abuse or said they hated their former masters. (this is lower than the number of women today who claim they have been abused by their husbands).
Of the remaining 90%, views range from neutral to absolute, outspoken love (about 30%) for their former masters. Some even say things like "slavery times sure were good times", and refused to leave their masters.
And while most were indeed glad to be free, most of them also DID NOT LIKE the yankees. They were well aware of the rapes and abuses of the yankee soldiers.
I'm sorry if this documented history from the slave's own mouths does not square with your views, but maybe it's time to re-examine your views based on documented history, not the crap taught in the government schools.
Look, everyone is glad slavery is gone in this country today. But, the historical record shows Southerners predominately followed the instructions provided by the Apostle Paul for the institution.
I would also advise you to read Booker T. Washington's wonderful autobiography, "Up from Slavery". He spoke very highly of his former master. He also said that, even given the downfalls of slavery, that blacks had benefited because of it.
All that said, we are better off having moved beyond it.. although Lincoln deserves virtually none of the credit for that.
Now, if we could only end the practice of divorce, which Paul gives similar instruction on, although it is also destructive....
bttt
"The same could be said of Robert Lee, Jefferson Davis, and just about every other confederate leader."
No it can't. Lee, Davis, and others resigned their posts with the federal government, therefore, they had no oaths to that government to uphold.
"Where in the Constitution is the anti-secession clause, again?"
ANSWER: There is none. EXCEPT: the Constitution says that a section of a State may not secede from that State unless approved by the State legislature.
This is precisely what happened with West Virginia. They seceded from the State of Virginia UNCOSTITUTIONALLY-- the Virgina legislature NEVER approved it--- but Lincoln DID!!!
In other words, Lincoln approved of the only clearly unconstitutional secession in history!!!!
As for the States, here is the principle:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."--- the Declaration of Independence
There isn't one. But while secession itself may not be illegal, unilateral acts of secession as practiced by the southern states are.
I was being sarcastic - but thanks for the West Virginia information. I'd forgotten about that, if I ever knew.
The slavery in America about which we should be concerned now is the slavery of socialism, which reduces legally-free citizens to the status of pets.
It also turns otherwise decent people into the moral equivalent of Simon Legree: "Those people shouldn't be allowed to have children, since they're on welfare." "She should be sterilized; my tax dollars are supporting those children." "Put Depo-Provera in the public water supply; it will only affect those who can't afford bottled water." (This last is an actual FReeper quote, God help us.)
What's your source for that? The Constitution is the authority which governs relations among the States, and the Constitution is silent on the matter of States' seceding.
No, but I would have endorsed a successful capture.
Do you support the attempt to ASSASINATE President Davis and his cabinet via Dahlgren which failed?
Yes, if you mean assassinate.
True, but the Constitution is not silent on the fact that some powers are reserved to Congress and other powers are forbidden to the states. States cannot be admitted to the Union without the approval of Congress, cannot change their status without the approval of Congress, by implication should not be able to leave without the approval of Congress. After all, the secession of a state does not affect only that state, it can have a negative impact on the interests of the states remaining in the Union. Shouldn't they have a say in the matter?
Then you endorse Booth's assassination of Lincoln?
The question is, do you support the assassination of Lincoln?
I don't tend to have a problem with assassination of rebel commanders, but I draw the line at heads of state, depending on the circumstances. JD doesn't qualify.
I'm not so sure of that.
But, the historical record shows Southerners predominately followed the instructions provided by the Apostle Paul for the institution.
Cold comfort if you're the one deprived of liberty.
And don't you think there's some self-selection going on in the 1930s study? The poorly-treated slaves would by definition have been of poorer health and have been dead by the 1930s. Only those with the best treatment would have survived so long.
Conducting a survey about the quality of slave life seventy years after Emancipation is a very self-serving activity.
All that said, we are better off having moved beyond it.. although Lincoln deserves virtually none of the credit for that.
LOL, right. Lincoln was the first person to send armies to liberate the slaves, and succeeded. NOTHING to do with it? Right.
Per the rules of war, is the Commander-in-Chief a legitimate military target? Could we have assassinated Hitler?
JD doesn't qualify.
Sorry, but the Confederacy maintained diplomatic relations with the Vatican, and was addressed as the "Illustious and Honorable President" by the Pope. Regardless of your sentiment, President Davis was the head of the Confederate States of America.
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