H.L. Mencken on Abraham Lincoln

"Five Men at Random," Prejudices: Third Series, 1922, pp. 171-76. | H.L. Mencken

[H.R. Gross]

H.L. Mencken on Abraham Lincoln

From "Five Men at Random," Prejudices: Third Series, 1922, pp. 171-76.
First printed, in part, in the Smart Set, May, 1920, p. 141

Some time ago a publisher told me that there are four kinds of books that seldom, if ever, lose money in the United States—first, murder stories; secondly, novels in which the heroine is forcibly overcome by the hero; thirdly, volumes on spiritualism, occultism and other such claptrap, and fourthly, books on Lincoln. But despite all the vast mass of Lincolniana and the constant discussion of old Abe in other ways, even so elemental a problem as that of his religious ideas—surely an important matter in any competent biography—is yet but half solved. Was he a Christian? Did he believe in the Divinity of Jesus? I am left in doubt. He was very polite about it, and very cautious, as befitted a politician in need of Christian votes, but how much genuine conviction was in that politeness? And if his occasional references to Jesus were thus open to question, what of his rather vague avowals of belief in a personal God and in the immortality of the soul? Herndon and some of his other early friends always maintained that he was an atheist, but the Rev. Willian E. Barton, one of the best of later Lincolnologists, argues that this atheism was simply disbelief in the idiotic Methodist and Baptist dogmas of his time—that nine Christian churches out of ten, if he were live today, would admit him to their high privileges and prerogatives without anything worse than a few warning coughs. As for me, I still wonder.

Lincoln becomes the American solar myth, the chief butt of American credulity and sentimentality. Washington, of late years, has bee perceptible humanized; every schoolboy now knows that he used to swear a good deal, and was a sharp trader, and had a quick eye for a pretty ankle. But meanwhile the varnishers and veneerers have been busily converting Abe into a plaster saint, thus marking hum fit for adoration in the Y.M.C.A.’s. All the popular pictures of him show him in his robes of state, and wearing an expression fit for a man about to be hanged. There is, so far as I know, not a single portrait of him showing him smiling—and yet he must have cackled a good deal, first and last: who ever heard of a storyteller who didn’t? Worse, there is an obvious effort to pump all his human weaknesses out of him, an obvious effort to pump all his human weaknesses out of him, and so leave him a mere moral apparition, a sort of amalgam of John Wesley and the Holy Ghost. What could be more absurd? Lincoln, in point of fact, was a practical politician of long experience and high talents, and by no means cursed with idealistic superstitions. Until he emerged from Illinois they always put the women, children and clergy to bed when he got a few gourds of corn aboard, and it is a matter of unescapable record that his career in the State Legislature was indistinguishable from that of a Tammany Nietzsche. Even his handling of the slavery question was that of a politician, not that of a messiah. Nothing alarmed him more than the suspicion that he was an Abolitionist, and Barton tells of an occasion when he actually fled town to avoid meeting the issue squarely. An Abolitionist would have published the Emancipation Proclamation the day after the first battle of Bull Run. But Lincoln waited until the time was more favorable—until Lee had been hurled out of Pennsylvania, and more important still, until the political currents were safely funning his way. Even so, he freed the slaves in only a part of the country: all the rest continued to clank their chains until he himself was an angel in Heaven.

Like William Jennings Bryan, he was a dark horse made suddenly formidable by fortunate rhetoric. The Douglas debate launched hum, and the Cooper Union Speech got him the Presidency. His talent for emotional utterance was an accomplishment of late growth. His early speeches were mere empty fire-works—the hollow rodomontades of the era. But in the middle life he purged his style of ornament and it became almost badly simple—and it is for that simplicity that he is remembered today. The Gettysburg speech is at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history. Put beside it, all the whoopings of the Websters, Sumners and Everetts seem gaudy and silly It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost gem-like perfection—the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Nothing else precisely like it is to be found in the whole range of oratory. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous.

But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination—"that government of the people, by the people, for the people," should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves. What was the practical effect of the battle of Gettysburg? What else than the destruction of the old sovereignty of the States, i.e., of the people of the States? The Confederates went into battle free; they came out with their freedom subject to the supervision and veto of the rest of the country—and for nearly twenty years that veto was so effective that they enjoyed scarcely more liberty, in the political sense, than so many convicts in the penitentiary.

[Triple]

Both New York and Virginia entered the United States with ratification documents that clearly reserved the right of each state to exit the United States.

Are you claiming the ratification documents are invalid?

[WhiskeyPapa]

Both New York and Virginia entered the United States with ratification documents that clearly reserved the right of each state to exit the United States.

Both say "to the people", not to the people of NY or VA.

Any reservation of a right to secede would be under natural law, not U.S. law.

Walt

[Triple]

"...DO in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will,..."

Virginia ratification document - emphasis added

[shamus11]

The connections between Kennedy and Lincoln. President Kennedy and President Lincoln

[TheDon]

...the Founders expressly set up a limited government with ENUMERATED powers, and that Thomas Jefferson said "The constitutions of most of our states [and of the United States] assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."

Abraham Lincoln
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1861

...

I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices.

... All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right plainly written in the Constitution has been denied? I think not. Happily, the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them.

The Southern States fought for the right of self-determination in their affairs, slavery was not an issue of great importance at the time of the framing of the Constitution and slavery was legal.

Another quote, from the same address:

"One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute."

These are just tidbits to entice you to read the full address. I think you will find President Lincoln addresses your points, and I would say rather well, but I imagine you will disagree. It would not be surprising as many have given their lives on your side of the argument, as well as mine.

http://americancivilwar.com/documents/lincoln_inaugural_1.html

[TheDon]

If coming from a slaveholding State discredits thought

This is classic case of a strawman argument.

You are trying to claim that my statement about something DiLorenzo said:

"The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves."

"I find this argument laughable coming from the slave holding states."

is a statement about the thinking of slave holding states in general. Sorry, but it is not. Of course, the core of what is wrong with DiLorenzo's statement does not regard slavery, but the fact that the South, as a minority, was trying to overthrow the US Constitution. Relax, I realize you don't agree with that point of view. But this is part of the argument that Lincoln made in his inaugural speech.

[TheDon]

I'm getting my threads mixed up. Change DiLorenzo to Mencken.

[r9etb]

The southern states were paying 90% of the taxes, and had 10% of the population, thus no hope of correcting the problem.

Quite an assertion. Now prove it.

[TheDon]

Looks like I'm getting my threads mixed up. Change DiLorenzo to Mencken.

[TheDon]

Is it your position that Lincoln invaded the South in order to free the slaves?

It is not my position. Lincoln was quite clear that slavery was legal in the US, but he would fulfill his Constitutional obligations as President.

[Colt .45]

DONE AND DONE!

[Colt .45]

Abraham Lincoln, 1838:
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."

Straight from the horse's mouth so to speak!

[billbears]

Hmmm..you seemed to have missed a few. We can't go painting abe as an abolitionist now because he himself was quoted as saying he didn't want to be painted with the 'abolitionist brush'.

The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.

This statement along with

I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service.

this statement as well as

There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that— I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them

all show clearly lincoln could have cared less about what went on in the states as long as they didn't leave and he and Chase got their money. This came from abe's inaugural address, or I imagine as he saw it, his acceptance of the crown of POTUS

[Colt .45]

"Abraham Lincoln, 1838:
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."

Then you'll say the Supreme Court says that secession was illegal -

Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861:
"... the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the supreme Court, ... the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."

Chief Justice Marlin T. Phelps, Arizona Supreme Court:
"Nothing was further from the minds of the Framers of the Constitution, than that the supreme Court should ever make the Supreme Law of the Land."

Senator Sam Ervin:
"... judicial verbicide is calculated to convert the Constitution into a worthless scrap of paper and to replace our government of laws with a judicial oligarchy."

Thomas Jefferson, 1820:
"You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.... The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal."

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William S. Smith in 1787. Taken from Jefferson, On Democracy 20, S. Padover ed., 1939: "And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms .... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Paul Anderson (?? I think. _Not_ Poul):
"If the price I must pay for my freedom is to acknowledge that the government was granted the power to infringe on them, then I am not free."

[x]

There's a question of ends and means. I don't say that a people doesn't have the right to work to achieve its goals peacefully. But secession at will is the cause of much bloodshed in the world, because there are always conflicts over borders, rights, common property, and legitimacy. If it's deemed necessary for two peoples or political units to separate it should be the occasion for a long period of discussion and negotiation. Setting up a new powerful, national government and army and assaulting military installations doesn't seem to have been the right way to go.

The Confederatist argument appears to be "I'm right and if you don't agree whatever happens is on your head." This is pretty much bound to produce problems. A more moderate, peaceful and pragmatic course would be advisible and produce better results for all concerned.

Given all that's happened since, secession looks to have been a bad choice. Both the means and the end of the secessionists were deeply flawed. I don't think that they had a right to secede at will, but even if they did, taking that option was a mistake, and would have been a mistake even if they had not started the war or if the Union had let them leave. There are different ways in which one can be wrong and right. Confederatists rarely question the wisdom or justice of secession. But that's something that ought to be more seriously examined.

Where there is no clearly established and accepted means of severing the Union, acting prudently and responsibly becomes important. Arguably, the union could have been dissolved constititutional amendment. This would have been a better path to take, as it would have been more generally accepted, would have allowed for an equitable arrangement of the details, and would have allowed heads to cool.

Respectfully, it was not any British attempt to stop the "secession" of the American colonies that produced the American Revolution. Rather, it was the British attempt to disarm the militia that produced a war. The Colonists stood up for their rights as Englishmen. The question of independence only came along later in the midst of war. From a practical point of view, people's opinions about the war would have been very different if the shooting hadn't been initiated by the secessionists themelves.

The Confederacy has some major moral burdens to shoulder. A lot of people today are inclined to regard questions of race and slavery as America's common heritage and burden. But when the "South is Right" school comes out portraying the Confederacy as a moral lamb innocent and justified in everything beset by the Yankee wolf, it does tend to produce ill-will. There's certainly enough blame to attach to Southern political elites both for their ends and for the means they used to attain them. One may find fault with the other side as well and also find much to praise in the courage and loyalty of Confederate troops, but the Confederatist whitewash and the anti-Unionist cult do as much to muddy the waters as any one else does.

I share your concern about globalism today. Perhaps if I'd been alive in the 19th century, I'd have had similar concerns about the growing power of the national government. Certainly, in the 20th century the federal government went too far into things that could better be handled by the state or local governments or the private sector. But how I would have reacted in 1860 would have depended much more on the specific circumstances and events of the time, rather than on what happened fifty or 100 years later. Decent and honorable people came to different conclusions in 1860, and one possible conclusion is that the Confederate leaders were overstepping their bounds and acting unconstitutionally and belligerently.

[FOOTY]

Do have any specifics to back your claim that DiLorenzo is the Michael Bellisiles of Lincoln studies? DiLorenzo's book is virtually unassailable in its conclusions about Lincoln. Just as a test, could you outline Dilorenzo's view of Lincoln? This is just to see if your even familiar with his work.

[x]

Check out the article in the July "Liberty" Magazine entitled, "Liberty and Union, Now and Forever." It's a criticism by a libertarian of the Rockwellite enthusiasm for the Confederacy and secession. It's a long article, and I don't know what to make of the whole, but the author makes some good points. He made one of the Rockwellites livid. Unfortunately, I don't think the article is available on the Internet.

[Roscoe]

Mencken was a bitter, irrelevant, crusty old fart and atheist who could write well. In this he was remarkably similar to Ayn Rand, except that Rand couldn't write well.

Well put.

[Roscoe]

"The southern states were paying 90% of the taxes, and had 10% of the population, thus no hope of correcting the problem." --editor-surveyor

Quite an assertion. Now prove it.

Please ping me if he ever responds.

[nicollo]

--H.L. Mencken, "The Final Estimate," The Smart Set, 1919.

1919. Damned straight.
Yes, Huck, I'll go there. Thanks.