Posted on 12/11/2002 3:15:37 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
A minor scholar, an economist by the name of Thomas DiLorenzo, has been on an anti-Lincoln Jihad throughout the year 2002. His book, "The Real Lincoln," has led otherwise sound writers, like Paul Craig Roberts, to declare the Great Emancipator, "worse than [ the Cambodian mastermind of genocide] Pol Pot." Since Dr. Keyes and the Declaration Foundation take Lincoln to be a model of Declarationist Statesmanship, it behooves us to deal with the calumnies of Professor DiLorenzo, and we have done so throughout the year.
Today, I'd like to excerpt a section from our book, "America's Declaration Principles in Thought and Action," dealing with the charge made by DiLorenzo and many before him, mostly leftists, but also libertarians, that Lincoln showed himself a racist in the famous "Peoria Speech" of 1854. It is found in Chapter 8 of our book, which may be purchased online at www.declaration.net
As we read the Peoria speech today, one element jars our sensibilities: Lincoln does not take a stand for full political and social equality of the races. Some of the abolitionists of his day, especially the Quakers and other religious abolitionists, did. The 1854 laws of Maine set up in almost all respects what we would recognize today as equal civil rights, including jury duty and voting rights. But Maine was almost alone. Illinois' laws did not allow blacks to vote or serve on juries, and Illinois was typical of the free states.
In Peoria, Lincoln said this: "Let it not be said that I am contending for the establishment of political and social equality between the whites and blacks. I have already said the contrary." Was this statesmanlike too, or was it either weak or unwise, or even unjust?
We think Lincoln's position in the Peoria speech can be vindicated, and that it can be reconciled with his support for expanded civil rights towards the end of the Civil War, if two things are kept in mind. First, as Lincoln himself said in 1859, "In this country, public opinion is everything." Second, that the knowledge of the statesman is prudence, or practical wisdom, which consists in knowing how to move towards moral goals by practicable steps, not in "the immoderate pursuit of moral perfection" which, in political life, "will more often lead to misery and terror than to justice and happiness," as Thomas G. West puts it in his book on the founding.
To take the first point first, is it not self-evident that in a republic, where the citizens are governed by their consent, their opinion will be the court of last resort, the final arbiter of all disputes? That does not mean that those opinions will never change, or that it will not be the duty of a good man and especially of a statesman to mold them for the better. But a public man will ignore them at his peril. Lincoln turns this weapon back on Douglas in the Peoria speech, when he tells him that he will never be able to suppress the voice of the people crying out that slavery is unjust: "...the great mass of mankind...consider slavery a great moral wrong; and their feeling against it, is not evanescent, but eternal. It lies at the very foundation of their sense of justice; and it cannot be trifled with-It is a great and durable element of popular action, and I think, no statesman can safely disregard it."
Sir Francis Bacon wrote long ago that, "Nature, to be mastered, must be obeyed." The saying is equally true of the nature of the physical body and of the body politic. Public opinion, the soul of the political body, was ailing in the days after the Nebraska Bill, and Douglas was prescribing as medicine what Lincoln thought poison. That the patient should also take up a regimen of vigorous exercise after his recovery was not and should not have been the first thing on the doctor's list.
Lincoln never said that political equality between the races was wrong; the most complete expression of his early views on the matter came in the 1858 debates with Douglas, and he clothed them entirely in the language of feeling: "...[I said years ago[1] that] my own feelings would not admit a social and political equality between the black and white races, and that even if my own feelings would admit of it, I still knew that the public sentiment of the country would not, and that such a thing was an utter impossibility, or substantially that." And again, in the same debate, "I agree with Judge Douglas that he [the Negro] is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color- perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments; but in the right to eat the bread without the leave of any body else which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man."
It must be remembered that the young Lincoln had said in 1838 that our passions, our feelings, were to be the enemy of our freedom in the future, and that reason, "cold sober reason," would be the friend of the principles of the Declaration. Only one feeling, an almost religious reverence for the founding ideals, would buttress that reason. It should also be pointed out that Lincoln said that he knew only that the feelings of his fellow citizens would not admit of equality. He was certain that there was an inequality of "color." He did not say that he was certain of the infinitely more important inequality of "intellectual and moral endowments." These he said, might be unequal... "perhaps."
Many causes, including prominently the religious conviction that all men are brothers, conspired to change public opinion in the United States towards the end of the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation, by altering the legal status of slaves and by encouraging them to flee their masters and seek refuge in the Union armies, had some effect. But the greatest source of the change was probably the testimony given in blood by the black soldiers who had served the Union. The number enlisted was reported by the President to Congress in January of 1864 to be over 100,000,[2] and Lincoln and many others thought that without their services, the war could not have been won. To a complaining Northern politician, James C. Conkling, who objected to fighting to "free negroes," Lincoln penned these memorable words: "...[when peace comes] it will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost. And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it."
When a man will not fight to preserve his people and his principles, we call him a slave; when a slave does fight, we see in him a man. In antiquity, slaves who risked their lives to save their masters were often manumitted. They had proved their manhood. Lincoln wrote Conkling in the same letter, "If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive--even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept."
It cannot, alas, be said that the promise was perfectly kept. It would take a century more after the abolition of slavery for a new exercise of Declaration statesmanship to establish political equality without regard to race in this country. But the start was made in the time of Lincoln's stewardship.
Let us be blunt; if Lincoln had taken the full position of equal social and political rights, he would not have been electable to any statewide office in Illinois, neither in 1854, when he was a candidate for U.S. Senate and nearly won the nomination, nor in 1858, when he and Douglas had their memorable debates. He would not have become president in 1860, nor would any member of his party who took such a stand. He accomplished the good that he could, always insisting on the fundamental principle that in the fullness of time would yield such results. To achieve this good, he had to rekindle a reverence for the Declaration. Let us look briefly at how he did that in the Peoria speech.
Word, words, words. "Mere words" men say, and yet it is by the power of words that we take common counsel and learn to govern ourselves. We are free because we are made in the image of the all-wise God, and we have a bit of His light in our minds, and by that bit we strive to live according to His laws, the "laws of nature, and of nature's God." Of Divine things, St. Paul writes, "But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear of him without a preacher?"
Lincoln preached in Peoria. He preached the political religion he had declared must be preached years ago in Springfield. Douglas and the doctrine of popular sovereignty were "giving up the OLD faith... " Human equality and popular sovereignty were "as opposite as God and mammon..." Three times he calls the proposition that all men are created equal, the "ancient faith." Of the Nebraska Bill he says, "It hath no relish of salvation in it." He calls the Founders, "our revolutionary fathers," and "the fathers of the republic," stirring memories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He compares slavery to the fateful disobedience of Adam. He says: "Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust. Let us re-purify it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution."
Lincoln was like a great preacher in more than his scriptural language and his vision that America was founded on the Declaration as a kind of covenant or original creed, the "ancient faith." He endeavored to emulate the charity of great preaching, too, as when he admitted that "the Southern people" were "just what we would be in their situation," and when he said that "I surely will not blame them..." He stressed that Thomas Jefferson, the 'father Abraham' of the American covenant was "a Virginian by birth...a slaveholder..." He opened his speech by announcing that he did not "propose to question the patriotism, or to assail the motives of any man, or class of men...He. added that he wished "to be no less than national in all the positions" he would take. When he had suggested that "...a gradual emancipation might be adopted..." He immediately added, "but for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south." Thus, to political faith, he added political charity.
The climax of the speech actually occurs about three-fourths in; after that point Lincoln anticipates some of the points he expects Douglas to make in his final hour's response. The paragraph begins with "Our republican robe is soiled..." It ends with these words of salvation and hope, which we quote in full:
Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south--let all Americans--let all lovers of liberty everywhere--join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make and keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.
In the Lyceum speech, Lincoln had concluded by urging the statesmen of his day to take the materials supplied by reason and mold them into intelligence, morality, and reverence for the law. "Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." At Peoria, he took his own advice, and became such a statesman.
----------------------------------------------
[1]In fact, it was in the Peoria speech. The text there runs, "whether this [feeling against equality] accords with justice and sound judgement, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals."
[2] By the end of the war, over 200,000 blacks had served in the Union armed forces, and 37,000 had died serving their country.
Dr. Richard Ferrier President
Another interesting thing about the Bismarck:
Prinz Eugen and Bismarck had very similar silhouettes. Eugen had 8" guns and Bismarck had 15" guns, but from any distance or the air, they looked very similar.
The show also pointed out that Admiral Tovey had Rodney and King George V close to very close range so he could observe the fall of shot himself. The flat trajectory of the shells probably lessened the effect -- there was no plunging fire. The Bismarck's battle bridge was cleanly holed, but the citadel was not penetrated.
I have this book on U.S. battleships that says something like the optimum range of the big guns was like 18,000- 21,000 yards. Plunging fire was very important. And some important decision President Roosevelt had to sign off on in 1938 had a very important effect on this. It broadened the "band" of effective ranges. I think it was some skullduggery with the 1923 naval treaty. That' when we laid down the Alabama and Washington class battleships.
I don't think the Japs paid enough attention to that.
Walt
The famous Mr. Merryman was burning bridges. He mustered a secessionist calvary unit. He was indicted for treason.
What ultimately happened to him?
The police chief of Baltimore --Kane. He was arrested by the military. What happened to him?
Here's a hint. He was later a serving officer in the rebel army.
Walt
You, Walt...the fruitcake we get every year. Nobody wants it, nobody ordered it, we'll just slap a mailing label on it and send it on down the line. Perhaps Katy Texas this time, Illbay would probably be happy to see you.
I'm always quoting Jefferson Davis the laughable incompetent.
Walt
None. Abraham Lincoln refused to allow it.
Merryman was a citizen of Maryland. Maryland did not secede. He actively aided the enemies of the United States.
He could easily have been hanged based on the standards used to hang loyal Texans in Gainesville, Texas in 1862. In that instance --I just read this recently-- confessions were elicited from slaves -- every slave in the county was whipped according to the one source. And, the "court" stipulated that the convictions could be obtained by a majority vote by the jury. And the majority of the jury members were slave holders.
Forty loyal Texans were hanged even though no overt acts were proved on any of them.
Merryman was released after 49 days in jail.
Walt
Of course we all indulge in arguments that might not be the best. I do it as well. I certainly admit that I have reacted hastily sometimes and made mistakes, but my hope was to get beyond shallow tit for tat, at least sometimes. Scoring ephemeral points against each other or chalking up hollow, rhetorical victories doesn't advance our understanding a whit.
I began by responding to the characterization of Lincoln as a "big government thug." I thought to deal directly with what I took to be the commonest arguments against Lincoln. I maintained that Lincoln's protectionist and developmental policies can't simply be characterized as "thuggery" and aren't very "big government" by 20th century standards and were in consonance with the policies of other, earlier and highly respected political leaders.
There are other reasons why Lincoln wasn't a "big government thug." We have been arguing related questions long enough, that I presumed it to be understood that we all have arguments that, in such an informal discussion, we don't bring forward immediately. The size of government contracted after the war. Lincoln was trying to deal with a rebellion and the chaos it brought. And yes, slavery was the ultimate in thuggery and required a large governmental apparatus to maintain it. That isn't a red herring. And facing it is unavoidable in coming to a balanced assessment of the Civil War era.
You seem to associate discussion of slavery with "relativism." I have to wonder what you mean by "relativism." In truth, that discussion introduces absolute moral concerns into debate. There are of course other moral absolutes, but if slavery isn't wrong, then nothing is wrong. Taking slavery off the table creates an atmosphere of relativism. Just as wholly removing other questions of right and wrong from any historical discussion would.
You seem to be saying that including such a powerful absolute moral issue as slavery in the discussion leads to a "relativistic" acceptance of other evils. But surely the same result is produced if one makes free trade or state sovereignty or racial equality or inequality an absolute value. Perhaps we should take these off the table as well. The fact that an issue weighs heavily against one's side morally certainly doesn't mean that talking about it relativizes dicussion of the matter at hand.
Comparison of the goods and evils brought by any course of action is not relativism. It is inherent in any practical application of morality. Excluding such moral concerns because those on the other side may outweigh those on one's own is true relativism. I don't argue that opposition to slavery justifies everything, but one can't come to a fair assessment of how things stood, practically or morally, without taking slavery into account.
If you read Jaffa, rather than merely abuse him, you would understand the moral importance of the question of slavery and its expansion. While Jaffa may have his faults, he certainly does have a deeper, more comprehensive and more philosophical understanding than DiLorenzo or any other neo-confederate hack of the week. And one can't express moral fervor about tariffs and simply ignore the question of slavery or call it a "red herring."
This eternal "tit for tat," "I'm rubber you're glue" leads nowhere. I do have some respect for your intelligence, or at least cleverness. You have a very quick mind, but your general behavior isn't that of a person I want to talk to, so I will sign off this discussion.
The problem is that by the time this letter had been written, April 25, 1861, the die had been cast and a peaceful solution was no longer possible. The confederates had already bombarded Sumter and declared war. The southern army that had been massing since February was a very real danger. Had Maryland chosen to follow the other southern states into rebellion then the capitol and the administration would have been hundreds of miles behind what had to be considered enemy lines. So Lincoln would have had no choice. Maryand would have to be assumed as hostile as the other southern states and Scott would have been ordered to act accordingly.
Lincoln had sent a personal messenger, Robert Chew, with the letter and instructions to deliver the letter to Governor Pickens. This was done on April 6. Pickens literally knew about the plan before Major Anderson did. Here is the letter and Chew's account.
You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort-Sumpter...
The cause of the country was advanced to some extent, the length to which Jefferson Davis wanted war rather than a peaceful solution were exposed. Had the plan gone ahead and Sumter had been peacefully reprovisioned would Lincoln have been disappointed? I don't think so. Lincoln was in a win/win situation here. He truly believed that he could win the peace and outwait the south, ending the southern rebellion without a war. But if a war was to come, then it had to be the south that started it.
Do you think the promotion was a way to say "sorry, ace, but you were just a pawn"?
Nonsense, it was war and regular officers were a rare commodity. With the rapid expansion of the army, officers who had been captains and lieutenants in 1861 ended the war as generals, and that was true on both sides. As it turns out I can think of at least three officers present at Sumter who were generals during the war - Anderson, Doubleday, and (I kid you not) a lieutenant named Jefferson Davis. But there were hundreds of officers not at Sumter who ended the war as generals, too. Were they paid off as well?
Civilians can leave a city. They are not forced to remain, unless they are slaves.
And cities are legal military targets. The British, and to some degree, the Americans bombed cities in WWII with the express view of killing war workers, it being seen that a war worker was just as valuable to the war effort as a soldier on the front line.
But the Germans could and did evacuate all non-essential persons. Your statement is simply not correct.
Walt
There were 60-odd confederate leaders who were indicted for treason or related charges. They were never tried because in the view of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Salmon Chase, the passage of the 14th Amendment provided punishment for those who supported the rebellion. Trying and convicting them again on treason charges would have violated their 5th Amendment protections against double jeopardy. Absent the 14th Amendment, Jefferson Davis and dozens of others might have spent their remaining years in a jail cell.
Show that in the record.
"I will say now, however, I approve the declaration in favor of so amending the Constitution as to prohibit slavery throughout the nation. When the people in revolt, with a hundred days of explicit notice, that they could, within those days, resume their allegiance, without the overthrow of their institution, and that they could not so resume it afterwards, elected to stand out, such amendment of the Constitution as now proposed, became a fitting, and necessary conclusion to the final success of the Union cause. Such alone can meet and cover all cavils. Now, the unconditional Union men, North and South, perceive its importance, and embrace it. In the joint names of Liberty and Union, let us labor to give it legal form, and practical effect."
A. Lincoln 6/9/63
Walt
Damn right, too.
Although Lincoln always held out the hand of forgiveness and conciliation to the rebels, he told a delegation from Maryland that if 75,000 Marylanders opposed the passage of Union troops, they might find 75,000 graves.He was not ready to give up the game "until every card is played."
And yet, in February of 1865, he proposed that $400,000,000 in bonds be made available to the rebel states if they would only cease opposition to the national authority.
As you know, he refused to consider treason trials for any rebel, and indicated that the best thing was for the rebel leaders to leave the country. "Lincoln," Henry Grady said, "comprehended within himself all the strength, and gentleness, all the majesty and grace of the republic." He was indeed, the first American, "the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, in whose ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in whose great soul the faults of both were lost."
You criticise President Lincoln because you don't fancy the outcome of the war.
It's just more "mean old Lincoln kicked our rebel butts!"
Walt
Lincoln freed the slaves IN THE SOUTH ONLY and YEARS into the war as a political move. He was a consummate politician, not some great moral leader. If it's a great moral leader you want, look to Washington.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.