HATING LINCOLN: The Now Revered President Was, Like Trump, Widely Hated In His Day

Frontpage Mag ^ | 07/20/2018 | Robert Spencer

[SeekAndFind]

President Trump has once again drawn the sneers and condescension of the Leftist establishment media with his claim that “I am the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party—92 percent. Beating Lincoln. I beat our Honest Abe.” Lincoln, sniffed Newsweek, “died a decade before the telephone, which is used for polling, was even invented, and about 80 years before job approval polls for presidents started.” CNN intoned magisterially, “That’s a hard claim to back up.”

But lost in the media contempt was the salient fact that Lincoln, as revered as he has been since his death, was a wildly unpopular President in his day, even within his own party. As Trump continues to receive relentlessly negative media coverage despite a booming economy and outstanding success against ISIS and with North Korea, this is good to keep in mind.

Just before Lincoln took office, the Salem Advocate from his home state of Illinois editorialized that “he is no more capable of becoming a statesman, nay, even a moderate one, than the braying ass can become a noble lion.” Lincoln’s “weak, wishy-washy, namby-pamby efforts, imbecile in matter, disgusting in manner, have made us the laughing stock of the whole world.” The Salem Advocate argued, just as Trump’s critics do today, that the President embarrassed Americans before the world: “the European powers will despise us because we have no better material out of which to make a President.”

The Salem Advocate wasn’t alone; the most respected pundits in the nation agreed that Lincoln was an embarrassment as President. Edward Everett, a renowned orator, former Senator and Secretary of State, and 1860 Vice Presidential candidate for the Constitutional Union Party, wrote that Lincoln was “evidently a person of very inferior cast of character, wholly unequal to the crisis.” Congressman Charles Francis Adams, the son of one President and grandson of another, sneered that Lincoln’s “speeches have fallen like a wet blanket here. They put to flight all notions of greatness.”

Critics decided what they saw as Lincoln’s despotic tendencies, often denouncing the very things for which Lincoln is revered as great today. When he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the Chicago Times decried it as “a monstrous usurpation, a criminal wrong, and an act of national suicide.” The Crisis of Columbus Ohio sounded the alarm as hysterically as John Brennan crying treason after Trump’s press conference with Vladimir Putin: “We have no doubt that this Proclamation seals the fate of this Union as it was and the Constitution as it is.…The time is brief when we shall have a DICTATOR PROCLAIMED, for the Proclamation can never be carried out except under the iron rule of the worst kind of despotism.”

On the day the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, January 1, 1863, former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin R. Curtis said that Lincoln was “shattered, dazed and utterly foolish. It would not surprise me if he were to destroy himself.”

The Gettysburg Address didn’t go over any better. Edward Everett spoke for two hours just before Lincoln, and was showered with accolades. One man who was in the crowd, Benjamin French, recounted: “Mr. Everett was listened to with breathless silence by all that immense crowd, and he had his audience in tears many times during his masterly effort.” One of the reporters present, John Russell Young, praised Everett’s “antique courtly ways, fine keen eyes, the voice of singular charm.”

The Harrisburg Patriot & Union, by contrast, in its account of the commemoration at Gettysburg wrote: “We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of.”

Everett himself, an experienced speaker who knew good oratory when he heard it, thought otherwise, writing to Lincoln: “I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.” In response, Lincoln was grateful but self-deprecating: “I am pleased to know that, in your judgment, the little I did say was not entirely a failure.”

Lincoln did not even command much respect within his own party. The poet and lawyer Richard Henry Dana wrote to Charles Francis Adams in 1863 that “the most striking thing” about “the politics of Washington” was “the absence of personal loyalty to the President. It does not exist. He has no admirers, no enthusiastic supporters, none to bet on his head. If a Republican convention were to be held to-morrow, he would not get the vote of a State.”

In 1864, Lincoln was indeed renominated, but in a way that left Attorney General Edward Bates disgusted: “The Baltimore Convention,” he wrote, “has surprised and mortified me greatly. It did indeed nominate Mr. Lincoln, but…as if the object were to defeat their own nomination. They were all (nearly) instructed to vote for Mr. Lincoln, but many of them hated to do it.”

This is not to say that Trump is a new Lincoln, or that he will be as heralded after his administration as a distant memory the way Lincoln has been. But the lesson is clear: contemporary opinion doesn’t always line up with historical assessment. A notably unpopular President in his day, Abraham Lincoln, has become one of the iconic heroes of the Republic. It could happen again, and likewise the reverse could happen: the near-universal accolades and hosannas that today greet Barack Obama may one day, in the harsh light of history, appear to have been naïve, wrongheaded, and foolish in the extreme – at best.

[jmacusa]

You should be writing books on this subject BroJoeK. The Fire Eaters here want you to hate them. It would validate their otherwise meaningless lives. For them it’s all moral preening and self-righteousness. And self-righteousness is just a phony form of respectability.

[the OlLine Rebel]

BTW, how did you get Britain declaring rebellion BEFORE MA rebels actually resisted and fired on British troops?

And declaring rebellion doesn’t mean they will automatically disown their colonies. So what difference does that make?

[Pelham]

You might find this exchange of letters interesting, between Lord Acton and Lee:

Acton and Lee: A Conversation on Liberty

[BroJoeK]

the OLLineRebel: "(And MD was NOT “vast majority” unionist. Not in the least.)"

1. In April 1861 the Maryland legislature voted against secession 53-13 that's four to one.

2. During the Civil War roughly two Marylanders served the Union army for every one Confederate.

3. By 1860 about half of Maryland slaves were already freed.
   In November 1864 Marylanders' new Constitution abolished slavery, more than a year before the 13th Amendment.

Like other Border States, Maryland was strong majority Unionist and anti-slavery.

the OLLineRebel: "But it wasn’t NEARLY as much a crap shoot as the RevWar.
Not nearly.
The RevWar mixed it up alot more."

True in some states & regions, but not in others.
Fair to say: during the Revolutionary War the further west you travelled, the fewer loyalists you found.
In the Civil War, things were not so clear-cut, consider for example, Missouri:

Or consider this map of which Confederate counties voted for and against secession:

[Pelham]

Key Bridge linking Arlington to DC will surely have to revert to its previous name of Aqueduct Bridge.

[enumerated]

“Those are Washington and Lincoln, all others are several steps below them.”

Washington, yes. Following the revolution, he was offered kingship, and turned it down! He made mistakes, but that single act of pure statesmanship puts Washington far above all other presidents, including Lincoln.

I’m not going to try and relitigate the Civil War. To the victors go the spoils, not least of which is the privilege of recording history in a favorable light.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Nice stats. But they don’t really tell the whole story. E.g., tell them that the legis met just after the Baltimore riots, in Frederick (Western MD), generally pro-unionist instead of actual capital of Annapolis which was just then being occupied by the same man who would train guns on Baltimore, so many would have more trouble making it to session.

Oh and BTW, the same legis against secession (whatever their sympathies might be) declared not to reopen rail lines to the North, and requested Union troops be removed from the state. And then, the Feds came and arrested pro-southern legislators (even if they had voted against secession - see, “no” isn’t necessarily a pro-union stance).

I’m a native, and I can tell you, Baltimore, Southern MD and Eastern Shore were strongly Confederate sympathizers. Baltimore had the guns trained on it to ensure no more riots happened with Federals going through.

And major holes around Cumberland in Western MD. Trust me. I have direct experience there as well. Just check out the graveyards sometime.

They dotted all over. And Stonewall’s aide, Henry Douglas, was a native of what area in MD? Why, Sharpsburg, where what Yankees call Antietam happened. Yet that area had plenty Yankees for sure.

The truth is MD was very much a mixed bag. Much more than most states. It was much more mixed like the RevWar.

[BroJoeK]

theOlLine Rebel: "How is my basic statement wrong on breaking off? Seriously?"

Because you made it sound like Independence was declared at pleasure, just because some Americans woke up one morning & decided they didn't like the Brits anymore.
That's nonsense.
By July 4, 1776 Independence was totally necessary, not optional, just as the Declaration says -- four times!

theOlLine Rebel: "Yes they tried to keep begging their side but finally some tinderboxes just exploded and it kept going and getting bigger."

What "exploded" was King George & Parliament, who believed Americans should be reduced from self-governing semi-independent colonies to something far less free and far more profitable to the Brits.
They declared Americans in rebellion and sent armies to defeat & suppress us.
Then & only then did Americans finally move to declare their own independence.

theOlLine Rebel: "These were British colonies; they by rights belonged to Britain."

Sure, but they had for decades been granted self-government and semi-independence.
They believed themselves to be English citizens with the same political rights as other Englishmen -- hence the slogan: "no taxation without representation"

theOlLine Rebel: "Stop focusing on the DOI, BTW, and focus more on actual conflict - as stated, rebels already impeded Brits a year earlier (and tried earlier than that) and it was basically recognized as a general rebellion by appointing Washington to head New England operations."

But they did not formally declare independence after Concord & Lexington in April 1775, they waited over a year in hopes that someone, somehow, somewhere could find a way to peacefully patch things up.
They thought it was still not too late.

theOlLine Rebel: "And at the exact time of the DOI adoption, Howe just arrived in NY harbor.
Not alot had happened over a year, war-wise, except some stalemating around Boston."

By the time of the Declaration there had been, my count, 25 battles in nine states and two foreign countries:

1. Massachusetts -- 8 battles, 6 patriot victories
2. Virginia -- 3 battles, 1 patriot victory
3. South Carolina -- 2 battles, both victories
4. New Hampshire -- 1 battle, a victory
5. New York -- 1 battle, Ticonderoga victory
6. North Carolina -- 1 battle, victory
7. Georgia -- 1 battle, a defeat
8. Rhode Island -- 1 battle, a defeat
9. New Jersey -- 1 battle, victory
   
10. Quebec -- 5 battles, 2 victories, campaign a disaster
11. Bahamas -- 1 battle, victory.

The British siege of Boston was far from inconclusive, it resulted in a major British defeat and evacuation of 10,000 British troops to Nova Scotia, then New York.

theOlLine Rebel: "Conversely, do you honestly believe there was no “olive branch”-type negotiating in Congress for years before the CW? "

Sure, some Southerners had threatened for decades to secede, always somehow placated by Doughfaced Northerners sympathetic to their issues.
In December 1860 even Senator Davis tried to help out by submitting a proposal which would eventually become the Corwin 13th Amendment, never ratified.

theOlLine Rebel: "And does it really matter?
Does it really matter if your wife wants to leave you just this second or has been festering for years?
She’s going to leave.
What are you going to do? Shoot her?"

Metaphorically speaking, only if "she" shot first.
Those were Lincoln's orders to Captain Fox's resupply mission to Fort Sumter.

theOlLine Rebel: "And what is your position on the “1812” war, with New England “traitors” wanting to secede because they didn’t want to fight with Britain?"

The Hartford Convention destroyed the old Federalist Party because nobody then wanted to be associated with secessionists.
It made the United States a single-party government (Democrats) for the next 27 years.

President Madison ("father of the Constitution") would not tolerate secession and moved US Army units to suppress it, if necessary.
They weren't necessary because New Englanders didn't declare secession, but did oust the Federalists party from government.

Election map of 1816, note Federalists reduced:

Election map of 1820, note Federalists are gone.
That's how New Englanders dealt with their secessionists.

[BroJoeK]

enumerated: "Washington far above all other presidents, including Lincoln."

Agreed, but no president ever faced remotely the difficult situation confronting Lincoln.
That puts him behind Washington, but ahead of any others.

[the OlLine Rebel]

“Point is: even assassination does not guarantee perpetual fame & honor.”

Of course not. There either has to be some extenuating circumstances of great import, or perhaps, notice, a leftist leaning. Leftists couldn’t care less about McKinley, but they adore any modern Dems like Kennedy (who was also made a big deal of before the killing - he was “handsome” and “young” albeit Catholic, and people were oohing-aahing already over him).

Garfield was hardly in office when he was shot, unfortunately. He had no “background” to build up, and no great drama like Lincoln.

But it is a trend that does tend to happen.

[rockrr]

IMO “Let them up easy” solidified Lincoln’s place in history in the same way. He sought not just reunification, but reconciliation and rehabilitation of all Americans.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Oh good God.

Again, the DOI was a year after fighting started - Congress as a whole, as legislators of sorts. But the FIGHTING - the people - was BEFORE the rebellion proc! So what was wrong with declaring a bunch of fighting (which *you* documented - albeit ONLY the NE and Quebec issues were *significant*, which was my point but I forgot Arnold and Quebec), complete with an appointed southern general from same legis, to be rebellion?

As to the “shooting”, SC seceded well before Ft. Sumter. There was no shooting until Feds basically refused to leave their land (yes, somehow they probably should have been compensated, but why not leave?).

Secession very nearly happened for the Hartford Convention. They were really just too late, but they still advocated states’ rights and nullification. As it was lots of NEers were actually in open treason as in MA gov with a “secret” emissary, dealing with the Brits. Yet no real consequences.

[BroJoeK]

the OlLine Rebel: "And then, the Feds came and arrested pro-southern legislators."

But only after the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.
That put the Constitution's definition of treason into effect:

Article 3 section 3: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

The Constitution also allows:

Article 1, section 9: "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

That's what happened in Maryland, Chief Justice Taney notwithstanding.

the OlLine Rebel: "The truth is MD was very much a mixed bag.
Much more than most states.
It was much more mixed like the RevWar."

All the Border South states were similar:

1. Maryland = 2 Union troops to 1 Confederate
2. Kentucky = 3 Union troops to one Confederate
3. Missouri = 3 Union to one Confederate
4. West Virginia = about one to one.
5. Delaware = several Union to one Confederate.

[BroJoeK]

the OlLine Rebel: "Again, the DOI was a year after fighting started - Congress as a whole, as legislators of sorts.
But the FIGHTING - the people - was BEFORE the rebellion proc!"

I see that you're trying to draw some kind of distinction here, but I don't "get" what it is.
You remember the 1st Continental Congress met for the first time in the fall of 1774 and it merely sent a petition to King George asking for a redress of their grievances.
The petition had no effect and so the 2nd Continental Congress met the following year to plan out defenses.

In the mean time, events in the field proceeded from push to shove and then all out war -- none of it directed by Congress or, say, General Washington until July 1775 when he arrived in Boston.

the OlLine Rebel: "So what was wrong with declaring a bunch of fighting... complete with an appointed southern general from same legis, to be rebellion?"

Sure, but the Brits had been cruzin' for a bruzin' from the beginning -- arbitrarily imposing taxes, revoking charters of self government, using force to suppress colonists, each step nastier than before.
And never a favorable response to, for example, the 1st Continental Congress' petition.

Again my point is nothing remotely resembling such conditions existed in November 1860 when Deep South Fire Eaters began organizing to declare unilateral, unapproved secession, at pleasure.

the OlLine Rebel: "As to the “shooting”, SC seceded well before Ft. Sumter.
There was no shooting until Feds basically refused to leave their land (yes, somehow they probably should have been compensated, but why not leave?)."

You may not remember but in January 1861 President Buchanan announced that he would neither evacuate nor surrender Fort Sumter without a fight.
He tried to resupply it in January and Lincoln tried again in April.
In January South Carolina forces fired on Buchanan's ship and in April Jefferson Davis used Lincoln's resupply ships as his excuse to launch war against Union troops in Fort Sumter.

Lincoln declared that an act of rebellion and called up 75,000 troops to suppress it.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Point is: Davis knew attacking Fort Sumter would mean war, and he didn't care, because he expected to get the Upper South & Border States to secede and help win the war.

Oh well, some say, it was Lincoln'a "war fleet" that really started war, not Davis' assault on Fort Sumter.
No, because the choice was Davis' to resort to violence and he had no hesitation about making it:

"There would be to us an advantage in so placing them [Lincoln} that an attack by them would be a necessity, but when we are ready to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison [Fort Sumter] that advantage is overbalanced by other considerations."
Davis to Bragg April 3, 1861

[the OlLine Rebel]

“adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

I’m not sure a bunch of guys who voted against secession despite their misgivings were giving “aid and comfort”.

How about today’s leftists? OMG, so many much more treasonous people who want to OVERTHROW (NOT the case for the CW, just separation) this country’s foundation and Constitution. And they openly celebrate communist dictators alive and dead.

I just happened to find out another interesting little tidbit about the Lincoln admin the other week. Happened upon the story of Septimus Winner, a famous songwriter (you know Listen to the Mockingbird, and 10 Little Indians, Where has my Little Dog Gone) who made the mistake of writing a song “Give us Back...Little Mac”, objecting to the removal of McClellan from head of the army. Winner was arrested for this affront. He was released in exchange for destroying all remaining (some thousands had already been sold) copies of the sheet music.

That’s some great use of the power of the feds for “aiding and comforting”.

[x]

My whole life I’ve heard nothing but slathering over Lincoln from every-day people to activists to authors. I couldn’t help but notice amongst Dems he seems to have a perfect acceptance rate, except stubborn southerners who finally realized the Rep of Lincoln’s day is not the same as Rep today.

In the Northern states people -- Republicans above all -- looked up to Lincoln as the president who saved the union and freed the slaves. That was an oversimplification, but at heart there was more truth than falsehood in it. What were Republicans and conservatives to do, stand up for disunion and slavery on the theory that union and freedom were somehow liberal ideas?

If the Republican Party becomes an anti-Lincoln, neo-Confederate party a lot of people will just walk away from it. And if we've reached the point where everyone and everything in American history is on one side or another of some massive political chasm, then the country itself is lost.

[x]

I think anointing sainthood to past leaders like Lincoln does a disservice to everyone - and calling him the Great Emancipator - as if one man freed the slaves.

Educated people nowadays recognize that's an oversimplification, though it's not wholly without truth.

What about revering the Founders, though? Is that hero worship or "disgusting" or "fawning"?

I don't think it is. It's a way of keeping the country together and promoting respect for the Constitution.

The respect that we have for Washington and Franklin, Jefferson and Hamilton, Adams and Madison isn't so very different from what Americans also feel for Lincoln.

I do think Kennedy worship goes too far, but if people have political beliefs sooner or later they are going to find political heroes or models to admire.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Some of us are actually a lot more even-handed than you'd believe. I see a lot of camaraderie and tolerance and brotherhood amongst the men who shot at each other. Must’ve been, to allow all those memorials to go up so early and remain. I figure if they can respect each other, we can too.

Maybe take it up with a highly learned black man, and dare call him “self-righteous” or “meaningless”, much less phony or disreputable. http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams062817.php3

You can go from there to find more of his “pro-confed” op-eds.

[DoodleDawg]

There was no shooting until Feds basically refused to leave their land (yes, somehow they probably should have been compensated, but why not leave?).

Because it wasn't South Carolina's land?

[the OlLine Rebel]

I can see your views. And in fact, many might be surprised at some of my outlook on this. I’m not a rabid nut who just flails at any Yankee. I have definitely chosen for the Confeds to leave if they so wished. And for the US to continue and (even if not divided) go on declaring new territories “free”.

I’d ask many people to consider who venerates the “Union” Federals and Lincoln. And also who loves the USA. (Again, there is hyperbole involved, but that should be understood.)

In my experience (both personal and reading history), liberals universally love Lincoln and the ONLY TIME they UNEQUIVOCALLY love the “USA” is during the Civil War.

Ask them if they can say they love the US w/o qualifications. You will get constant equivocation and often ceaseless bellyaching about how bad it is. Only in the context of the Civil War will you get unabashed love for the USA, no questions asked.

Meanwhile, “Southerners” universally love the USA, EXCEPT for the Civil War. Yes, even in the old days before “Civil Rights”, they would not equivocate on their love for it. Neither these days.