KK
Korner: Lincoln's View of the Civil War and Its Purpose
the most famous American oration ever delivered?

Posted by

jemanji
8/25/17
30

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Caleb (MisterJonez) gave us rich, detailed background on Lincoln and his views on the Civil War.  Jonezie does, if I understand him right, consider Lincoln's attitude toward slavery suspect?

To pick one idea out of Jonez' remarks, here's a followup question for him (a literal question to a man who's studied it more than I have).  That single quote by Lincoln (to the effect he would pursue peace even at the cost of retaining slavery) is resonant.  

However, other ideas of Lincoln's cause me to question exactly what the spirit was on that quote.  Did Lincoln mean something along the lines of ME (Jeff) saying, "If I could allow secession of the West Coast so that they could just do their own thing on reproductive rights, I would"?  In the broader context of seeking compromise without 100,000's of dead soldiers fighting over the issue?

In about 10-12 sentences, the Gettysburg Address stated Lincoln's thoughts on what the Civil War was about.  I think the context of that Address was decisive, Lincoln standing over the smoking dead bodies lying there after his Presidential orders to battle.  it was Deathbed Declaration type of moment.  If you can't take the word of a man in his last five minutes of life, you can't take it at all.  I think right after the Dying Declaration comes those 270 words you said after the Battle of Gettysburg.

Lincoln only said about 3 or 4 things in the Address and the first thing he underlined was the idea that all men are created equal.  The direction of that statement is clear in context.

My own thought here - feel free to counter me - is that if I somehow limited myself :- ) to just 250-300 words on this blog, right after a nuclear war, you could take those 250 words as my most representative.  You'd hold me accountable for THOSE words and I'd want you to.

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We can plow through 100 things Lincoln said on either side of the issue, as we could plow through 100 things Donald Trump said at different times and places on abortion, for example.  But when push came to shove, Trump picked a SCOTUS and his "official" view was cast with that act.  150 years from now, when people try to understand Trump's position on abortion, we'll have to ask "Under what circumstances did he give that particular quote?"  

The same is true of President Obama, of Secretary Clinton and of any other politician.  For example, President Obama's view on gay marriage shifted radically at times.  It can be difficult to characterize any man's "true feelings" in his own era, much less doing it from a later century.

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Am not super well read but I know that Lincoln initiated several offers to purchase slaves' freedom at very high prices.  Not sure how much that particular quote captures his life's view of the issue?

I'm more in need of help here than able to offer it to others.  Would appreciate an even-handed dialogue as to where Lincoln, the North, and the abolitionists' degree of humanitarianism were in America relative to the rest of the world.

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It is trite to say that we're all very thankful that racism is slowly being eradicated, as one day hopefully hunger will be eradicated.  My own view of race is that given in Galatians 3:27-28.  I believe that one minute after we die, there is an afterlife and that our souls will not be male/female, black/white or rich/poor.  Gender and race will not even exist then, in my view; these flesh sacks are merely temporary housings for our gender-neutral souls.  Since I believe that, obviously I also believe that we should treat every other person with equal love, respect and goodwill, BEFORE they die, during this life.

As you know, I've been grindingly poor at times, but do not bear resentment to the wealthy in class warfare.  Bill Gates is not going to have a billion dollars in U.S. currency in the next life.  He will be as poor or rich as I am, so he needs my love as much as does a poor person.

In my view tribalism is fundamentally flawed.  Rather than struggle against one another, we would do better to serve one another.  Rather than to set up competing tribal interests, we would do well to ask what unifies and promotes peace.

In every generation there are women and men who lead the way on issues of compassion, people who are out in front compared to the people around them, people who pay heavy costs and make huge sacrifices to push their generation forward.  Hopefully you and I do so also.

Respectfully,

Jeff

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KK
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Abraham Lincoln

Comments

1

There's been a lot of revisionist history since the Civil War. The standard line now is that the war wasn't about slavery but states rights, and that Lincoln wasn't primarily concerned about freedom for blacks. Misterjonez and many, many others have accepted this false history. The truth is that slavery was the defining issue of the age, it was what most divided the nation and what stoked the South's anger toward the North. This is clearly stated by Southerners at the time, including in the official statement put out by South Carolina justifying their secession. I suggest everyone read that, because the only reason given is slavery, and remember that South Carolina was the first state to secede. The boilerplate response to this is to say that most southerners didn't own slaves so they must not have cared about the issue. This is patently false, The average southerner was horribly racist and was very happy to have blacks enslaved because it clearly established that they were subservient to whites. The thought of having blacks be free to live, work, shop, and go to school where ever they wanted was absolutely horrifying to southerners. That's why white southerners were so viscious to blacks after the war, installing segregation and doing everything thing they could to humiliate and terrorize freed blacks.

The claim that Lincoln didn't really want to free the slaves, he just wanted to keep the Union together is also false. He openly ran on a platform of outlawing slavery in the territories, which necessarily meant slavery in the South would be ended because eventually this policy would lead to far mor free states than slave states. The free states would then abolish slavery in the South. Everyone could see that, including Lincoln. He said explicitly that in fact:

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.

So Lincoln knew that his stated platform would lead to the elimination of slavery, and rather than water down or change his platform to try pacify the South, he openly and aggressively campaigned on it. Thus, ending slavery must have been something very dear to him and something he was willing to risk war over. When that war came, it was far bloodier and destructive than anyone imagined it would be, so it's not surprising that Lincoln at least occasionally dreamed of ending the war without ending slavery. But that doesn't change the reality of why the war began.

Ironically, because of the revisionism, the reason for today's southerner's support of Confederate flags and monuments is quite different than their original purpose. This makes the support for them today much less odious, so I'm not totally opposed to them even though I consider their real history troubling.

3

of a leader's personal and political positions.  Lincoln had a long, well-chronicled history of personally denouncing slavery, that's indisputable.  He also, however, actively rejected claims that he was an abolitionist on several occasions, which indicates that politically he was far from convinced that freeing the slaves via state force fit with his priorities.

I do find it interesting, CPB, that you deem yourself qualified to declare, without reservation, what motivated Abraham Lincoln (freeing slaves or maintaining the Union) when we have his very own words, written to one of the most powerful men in journalism at the time, declaring boldly (and with no more reservation than your own assertion regarding his motives) that his prime goal was the preservation of the Union, not the freeing of the slaves.  I'm interested to read your collated quotes on the subject where Lincoln, pre-Civil War (or at least during the first year or two) made such declarations as to his political will to end slavery.  Absent such political, not personal quotes, it seems inappropriate (meaning: in poor form, or based on a potentially faulty assertion) to draw conclusions based on one half of a batch of obviously contradictory (and intermixed personal vs. political) statements, no? (am genuinely curious what gives you such confidence in your above assertion)

Abraham Lincoln *clearly* has a long and well-documented personal record of speaking against slavery. But he always came up short of advocating its abolition--it was only ever the cessation of its spread into new territories that he, and the Whigs to which he belonged prior to their dissolution, publicly advocated.

And the above quote strikes me as incredibly self-serving and demonstrably untrue at a glance.  Where he says:

Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.

My understanding (and I welcome evidence to the contrary) is that in the North, automation and industrialization (in the form of mechanical combines and threshers drawn by teams of oxen or horses, and operated/maintained by a handful of skilled laborers where a dozen oxen and four skilled laborerers could out-work 200 slave farm-hands) had already rendered slavery economically unviable in Northern agriculture (centered on corn, rice, and wheat production) whereas in the South the only--ONLY!--agricultural endeavor where slavery was still profitable was in cotton (the cotton gin's invention, perversely, demonstrates how innovation can strengthen shackles as well as break them) which served as the most valuable export in the entire country at the time.

If it is economically unviable to employ slaves anywhere save in the cotton fields, why would anyone do it?  Why would slavery spread back to the North?  I'm asking a serious question here: what mechanism would propel slavery into a region which had already rejected it? 


My (completely amateur and part-time) reading of history suggests to me that the reason the South wanted to expand slavery into new territories is because, in large part, cotton could be grown in many of those new territories, and the South was still vying for political power via Senate and Congressional seats.  By controlling the USA's most important export, and expanding its production into new territories, the Southern Bloc could attempt to strengthen their coalition and fight back against the patently unfair string of tariffs which consistently drained wealth from the South and gave it to the North--a fight which they had been losing due to their smaller population and commensurately weaker representation in Congress).

It should probably be obviousy that I'm not apologizing for slavery.  It's evil wherever it's practiced.  I applaud the innovation and industrial revolution which freed slaves in the early 1800s, as well as the ideologues and philosophically-inclined people who stuck to their torches and ensured that the very instant it was no longer profitable to engage in slavery that slavery was made a thing of the past.  But without that innovation, I do not see any reasonable argument which suggests that slavery would have ended in the USA when it did.  So while the furor of the Abolitionists and righteous indignation of the ideologues was a key component to ending slavery when it was ended, it does not appear to have been a decisive component in making that end a reality.

5

Lincoln had a long, well-chronicled history of personally denouncing slavery, that's indisputable.  He also, however, actively rejected claims that he was an abolitionist on several occasions, which indicates thatpolitically he was far from convinced that freeing the slaves via state force fit with his priorities.

I do find it interesting, CPB, that you deem yourself qualified to declare, without reservation, what motivated Abraham Lincoln (freeing slaves or maintaining the Union) when we have his very own words, written to one of the most powerful men in journalism at the time, declaring boldly (and with no more reservation than your own assertion regarding his motives) that his prime goal was the preservation of the Union, not the freeing of the slaves. 

This is a false dichotomy: Lincoln was either driven to preserve the Union or free the slaves, not both. Well, he did badly want both, he just put preserving the Union as a higher priority. That's why during his first innaugural address he endorsed an ammendment being floated that would continue the 50/50 split between free and slave territories being extended all the way to the Pacific coast, yet later signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed all the slaves in the Confederacy. So while he was open to compromise in order to save the country, once it was clear the South wouldn't compromise, he went ahead with abolition.

I'm interested to read your collated quotes on the subject where Lincoln, pre-Civil War (or at least during the first year or two) made such declarations as to his political will to end slavery.  Absent such political, not personal quotes, it seems inappropriate (meaning: in poor form, or based on a potentially faulty assertion) to draw conclusions based on one half of a batch of obviously contradictory (and intermixed personal vs. political) statements, no? (am genuinely curious what gives you such confidence in your above assertion)

Abraham Lincoln *clearly* has a long and well-documented personal record of speaking against slavery. But he always came up short of advocating its abolition--it was only ever the cessation of its spread into new territories that he, and the Whigs to which he belonged prior to their dissolution, publicly advocated.

The quote I provided was from Lincoln's 1858 speech kicking off his campaign for senate. He publicly stated in a purely political context that he foresaw the complete abolition of slavery, and that he was in favor of it.

If it is economically unviable to employ slaves anywhere save in the cotton fields, why would anyone do it?  Why would slavery spread back to the North?  I'm asking a serious question here: what mechanism would propel slavery into a region which had already rejected it? 

Lincoln was arguing that the issue was so divisive and poisonous because the two sides were so adamant in getting their way that ultimately one side had to win because no compromise would ever be satisfactory to both sides. It doesn't seem plausible that the pro-slavery side could ever prevail in re-establishing slavery in the North, but it certainly was plausible that the anti-slavery side could abolish slavery everywhere. Regardless, by framing the issue in such a manner, and by siding with the anti-slave side, Lincoln was signaling that he ultimately was after complete abolition. That's certainly the way the South viewed his ideology, which is why southerners were so apocalyptic about his election. South Carolina even quoted his statement in their secession document.

My (completely amateur and part-time) reading of history suggests to me that the reason the South wanted to expand slavery into new territories is because, in large part, cotton could be grown in many of those new territories, and the South was still vying for political power via Senate and Congressional seats.  By controlling the USA's most important export, and expanding its production into new territories, the Southern Bloc could attempt to strengthen their coalition and fight back against the patently unfair string of tariffs which consistently drained wealth from the South and gave it to the North--a fight which they had been losing due to their smaller population and commensurately weaker representation in Congress).

The seceding states made clear in their own official statements that it was slavery that united them, not the production or export of cotton. In Virginia's brief statement, the only justification for secession was that the Federal government used its powers "not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States." In Texas' statement it refers to other members of the Confederacy as "her sister slaveholding States." It goes on to justify slavery on racial grounds, not economic ones:

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.

Some states did justify it on economic grounds, but even then did so for racist reasons. Mississippi:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.

Florida justified it on racial grounds first:

Their natural tendency every where shown where the race has existed to idleness vagrancy and crime increased by an inability to procure subsistence. Can any thing be more impudently false than the pretense that this state of things is to be brought about from considerations of humanity to the slaves.

Only later was economics mentioned, and only in a very brief and oblique way:

The representative principle is a sufficient security only where the interest of the representative and the Constituent are identical with the variety of climate productions and employment of labor and capital which exist in the different sections of the American Confederacy creating interests not only diverse but antagonistic.

Reading the various statements makes clear that it was overwhelmingly slavery itself that motivated the Southern states to secede, not cotton.

It should probably be obviousy that I'm not apologizing for slavery.  It's evil wherever it's practiced.  I applaud the innovation and industrial revolution which freed slaves in the early 1800s, as well as the ideologues and philosophically-inclined people who stuck to their torches and ensured that the very instant it was no longer profitable to engage in slavery that slavery was made a thing of the past.  But without that innovation, I do not see any reasonable argument which suggests that slavery would have ended in the USA when it did.  So while the furor of the Abolitionists and righteous indignation of the ideologues was a key component to ending slavery when it was ended, it does not appear to have been a decisive component in making that end a reality.

I agree.

6

Newt Gingrich was asked how he sees the current 2016-2020  culture war turning out.  He said sadly:  "AS A HISTORIAN, I'll say this.  One side wins, the other side loses.  There isn't going to be any Grand Compromise."

Instuctive to view 1860 in terms of 2016 and vice versa.  keep it coming amigos.

7

Am still left wondering how, precisely, slavery was supposed to spread back into territories which had already consigned it to the dustbin of irrelevance.  To my knowledge, there is no mechanism by which the USA of the 19th Century or later could propel slavery into other territories.  If we agree that there was no such practical mechanism, my criticism of Lincoln's statement stands unmolested (as far as I can tell).

If we do indeed agree on my last paragraph's content, I'm again left wondering what the path is for slavery to creep back into common practice.  I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here; I've led with one of the true linchpins of my entire position, that linchpin being the apparent lack of a practical route for slavery to reassert itself as a national institution even if the South got its way.  If slavery was, indeed, 'outdated' in economic terms via the industrial revolution (as it seems we agree that it was), it seems inevitable (to me, anyway) that it would continue to recede in popular implementation as automation inexorably made it irrelevant in every possible arena.  Humans are not collectively in the business of purposefully losing money; if slave-owning is financially unviable, few would continue to own slaves.

And still I'm left with a burning question regarding the overt preferential industrialization of the North over the South, even though there were long stretches of time when Southerners footed 2-3x their Northern counterparts, per capita, in terms of directly paying for the Federal budget.  If industrialization is the clearest path to outdating slavery, why not industrialize the South preferentially rather than the North after the heavy lifting of ending slavery had already been done in the Northern States?  A more bloodless approach to the issue, aside from emulating Great Britain's example, is as yet impossible for me to find.

While I'm interested in hearing the South's various espoused reasons for seceding, that interest is at least an order of magnitude less than my interest in Lincoln's and the Whigs'/Republicans' motives in driving the unfair tariffs ever harder against the South.  No war can ever be stopped by a last-minute sit-down between the principles; world-shaking events are usually decades in the making, so for me it's more important to examine the underlying conditions and how they came to be than it is to examine the specific actions once the proverbial dominoes began to fall.  Dominoes that have not been properly arranged cannot cause major chain reactions, no?  Still, I'm not the least bit interested in defending reprehensible ideologies based on intolerance of any severity.  The South had plenty of bad people working the levers; I'll happily concede that point.  As I said, my family didn't even arrive in the USA until the Civil War was already in the rearview. I've got no personal stake in this subject, for me it's 50% inquisitive and 50% ideological.

As to Lincoln 'signaling' that he was supportive of complete abolition, that much appears obvious after my own reading as well.  That's actually part of my complaint: he could have galvanized the entire free world by making a bold declaration which, in no uncertain terms, stated that he would expunge the evils of slavery from the face of the nation.  It might not have been a popular position to take, sure, but it would have given him every ounce of the moral credibility that gets (incorrectly, in my opinion) ascribed to him in our history texts.  But instead, after the Civil War had already begun, he pens that letter to Horace Greeley (which MUST be acknowledged as one of his most considered statements on the subject, given Greeley's influence at the time as a titan of journalism--a Letter To The Editor of that type, in that moment, could easily become one of the biggest turning points in the political campaign for Northern support.  Lincoln was no fool; he would have chosen every word as carefully as Jefferson chose those which became the Declaration of Independence.).

In addition to that statement, we know that he supported tariffs which essentially taxed the institution of slavery, used that slave-derived money to continue developing the North (where slavery was already on the way out), and ultimately made war on the South who stood outnumbered 4:1 by their Northern brethren at the war's outset.  He could have advocated greater infrastructure and industrial development in the South (I have found no evidence of him doing this) since it was clear during Lincoln's own time that automation and industrialization were the keys to uprooting the institution of slavery once and for all.

The South were idiots in the way they conducted the Civil War.  No question about it.  They should have made Lincoln fire the first shot (I'm thoroughly convinced he would have) since that would have given them all kinds of international and local support.  They shouldn't have formed the Confederacy (or at the very least shouldn't have formed it the way they did).  They should have selected someone other than Jefferson Davis to lead them (though they did a pretty stellar job recruiting Lee to the cause).  The South's blunderous conduction of the Civil War is one of many reasons why they lost, and Lincoln's truly epic statesmanship and political skill were central to the North's victory (which appeared very much in doubt at several points).  All of these points are cheerfully conceded because not only do I hold them to be true, but they're irrelevant to my central complaints about Lincoln.

I don't suspect my written words will change anyone's opinion, especially not someone occupying Cool Papa Bell's obviously well-developed position.  But I do think that Thomas Jefferson  (my personal favorite Early American Demigod) would have opposed the unfair targeting of the tariffs and equally unfair disbursement of those monies, both of which contributed to the Civil War's commencement.  He only grudgingly accepted that tariffs were something of a necessary evil, and opted to implement them only since that implementation made it possible for the Federal government to function without head- or wage-based taxes, but he spoke regularly about the dangers of funneling the tariff revenues from rural areas to urban ones.

Honestly, all I'm asking for is a little more nuanced view of what is easily (in my opinion) the least-well-understood period in American history.  As long as Lincoln is lionized and canonized for doing things for reasons which I remain unconvinced were his primary or even secondary motivations, I'll continue to put my $0.02 in whenever the subject arises--knowing full well that y'all will be lined up with whack-a-mole clubs in hand ;-)  And also understand that I view these types of controversial sequences in history as, generally, 51-49 one way or the other (I despise Alexander Hamilton, but understand that his position was a well-crafted one based on reality as much as ideology--I'd never call him an idiot, though I would call into question his priorities).  I probably push the issue of Lincoln up to 53-47 against, but I absolutely understand that there's a lot of strength to the other side of this particular board.

So, like my penchant for the Richter-Veresov Attack in chess, I'm content to play this position until I understand why it might not be a great one.  Losing a few more games than I win isn't enough to dissuade me, because I'm still not convinced as to why the position doesn't work--it looks to me like it works just fine.  Information-rich replies like Cool Papa Bell's are immensely helpful in figuring out what light bulbs I've got on and which ones I'm still missing.

Am genuinely curious to hear your take on the issue of the Union leadership not accelerating the industrialization of the South.  That is one of the pieces of this puzzle that unerringly brings me back to my currently-staked-out position.

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... era- and -park-adjusted?  :- )

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On the contrary Jonezie, I find your arguments fascinating and resonant.  As a novice on the topic, I think you've got a winner there on the gap between [Lincoln's idealized reputation] and [what he actually did in practical terms].  Agreed that if he's going to be painted an Apostle Paul on the subject of slavery, he should be able to show an Emancipation Proclamation in his announcement for candidacy.

Then again, I never saw him as the Apostle Paul; I always saw him as a great President.

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The problem comes when you get so many nowadays who stridently claim "Lincoln cared zero for black people.  No white person does."  It sounds like Cool Papa Bell would score him an 8-9 for his leadership on race and slavery, era-adjusted, and you'd give him a 7 or something.

Or not?

9

It's funny, because around 1970 when I went to grade school, I WAS taught an even-handed perspective on the Civil War.  I vividly remember my teachers arguing, "What did the North care about the South's cotton industry?  If they had made more accommodation, peace could have prevailed."

Don't know what the truth is here, but I do know this:  it's never as simple as Dudley Do-Right and Snidely Whiplash.  It probably WAS easy for the North to give up cheap agricultural labor.  In a way we have a 21st-century analogue when rich urban whites argue this-or-that on immigration while being very, very careful to keep their kids in all-white private schools.

10

I think, if one accepts even half of my premises as valid, it's impossible to score him a 9 or a 10 on a 1-10 scale because, though his ends were precisely what one would want (the abolition of slavery, hard on the barrel head), his means were about as suspect as you could possibly imagine actually working in a representative democracy/republic (unfair economic pressure, deliberate withholding of infrastructure development, authoring literal brother-vs-brother violence, etc..).

So yeah...a 7 sounds fair on the issue of racial intolerance.  I could wake up on a given day +/- 1 notch on the ten scale, but 7 looks about right, park- and era-adjusted :-)

Great question, man.  Thanks for that!

11

I've ever seen the "case against Lincoln" presented in a smart, dispassionate, and reasonable fashion.  They should save this thread in case somebody ever blows up the internet for its Confederate associations.

If you're focus-grouping me :- ) I'm afraid you've left me in a spot where i wonder whether you are era-adjusting nearly enough.  Also I wonder how much simpler Lincoln's life would have been with a "centrist" position on slavery, the way (let's say) Donald Trump today takes a centrist position on LGBTQ issues and Hillary Clinton took a moderate position on socialist redistribution of income.  What personal costs did Lincoln pay for his position on slavery?  They must have been immense.

I'm left with my reverence for Lincoln's leadership on slavery rather unaffected, perhaps freshly strengthened by Papa Bell's and Matt's reasoning as well as the GBA ...

.....

... but on the other hand I have a new and sobering perspective on how ruthless Lincoln might have been in certain situations.  Perhaps that is true of every President, that they're all stone-cold killers.  Maybe they have to be.

I'm also left with an increased respect for your powers of reasoning and persuasion, if that's possible.

12

I do think that Lincoln paid a heavy price for his position on slavery, though that price was greatly ameliorated (in my view) by his early political affiliations.  He was a Whig early on, and was such a masterful politician and statesman that he essentially built the Republican Party with his bare hands while sifting through the wreckage of the doomed Whigs (so-doomed due to their collective inability to deal with the very issue of slavery) and sputtering early Republicans.  By using the machinery built by Whig efforts (like the tariffs) which he earlier supported, he was able to slide nimbly from a party that had no effective response to the issue of slavery into a founding position in one where slavery was a primary issue.

Again, this may come across as damning with faint praise, but the fact that he so effectively insinuated himself into (and thereby purchased political/social protection from) the Whig party while sowing the seeds for his later political ambitions is yet another example of how masterful of a politician he was.  He, like Sima Yi of Romance of the Three Kingdoms (one of the Four Classics of Chinese literature), bided his time in service to an imperfect master (for Sima Yi, this was Cao Cao; for Lincoln, it was the Whigs) while laying the groundwork for a truly nation-changing dynasty/realignment.  And once the respective opportunities arose for these men, they seized them with aplomb and never looked back.

If he had been a political outsider, or had been unaffiliated with such a powerful national party as the Whigs, my estimation of him as a moral character and crusader of human rights would increase substantially.  But, as you muse in your post above, I happen to think that particular path is not one which can be predicted to bring consistent success to high-level politicians of our democratic republic.  Ruthlessness, duplicity, and the willingness (or, more likely, the eagerness) to double-speak and backstab are probably all requisites to hold high office and make anything worthwhile happen while you do so.

But I do tend to give more credence than most with whom I converse to the axiom: "The ends cannot justify the means."  It's another pillar of my position regarding Lincoln, though I hope I've ably demonstrated by now I'm not hidebound against lavishing praise upon even such a flawed historical figure as Abraham Lincoln.

He did build the United States of America, after all--before him, it was these United States of America.  We could argue until the stars burn out over which was, or is, ideal but we can't argue with the effectiveness of Lincoln in reshaping the nation into something that it previously had not been--nor can we dismiss the acceleration of one of humanity's greatest golden ages in the wake of his efforts.

13

adjusted ratings (brilliant angle, Jeff!) would be Martin Luther King.  Here was a guy who, as far as I am aware, subjected himself to real peril every time he spoke publicly.  He didn't have a literal army of secret service agents protecting him round-the-clock, nor did he have the protection of a national political party, nor did he have the benefit of conducting the majority of his business in the hallowed halls of government.  He did his work in the mud, the blood, and the beer of everyday America.  He was a 10 out of 10 in my book precisely because he didn't expect to directly profit from his efforts.  He probably hoped he would profit, but only a fool in that climate would expect a net profit from speaking as he did in that time.

Camille Paglia had that beautiful quote in one of her articles about the expectation of gain and how it destroys the meaning of a statement.  I wish I could find it again, but it goes something like: "If a person can reasonably expect to profit from speaking truth to power, they are no longer speaking truth to power but merely advocating one power in favor of another."  That'll do for me w/r/t Lincoln vs. MLK.  It seems to me that Lincoln could reasonably have expected his actions, words, and positions re: slavery to benefit him politically (because he was a master statesman and superb politician), so that knocks him down a peg or so right there.  MLK?  Not so much.

14

The South wanted to keep slavery, and had the right to do so under the existing constitution. It was a local/state matter. As you make clear, an eventual 2/3 majority of states under a Lincoln doctrine could outlaw slavery in all states. The South saw the handwriting on the wall and acted precipitously. A new amendment would threaten their current "liberties" (to own slaves).

Good stuff CPB. And Doc, I loved this post!

15

The South seceded becuase of slavery, but went to war because of pride and arrogance. Pride because they couldn't stand to have even a small contigent of Federal soldiers on a tiny scrap of land in their territory. Arrogance because they thought they could quickly defeat the North despite being completely unprepared for war.

16

Lincoln's intent regarding slavery is made VERY...VERY clear by the extraordinary, borderline unethical, certainly marginally-illegal efforts Lincoln used to get the thirteenth amendment passed.

No man who didn't believe in tnt equality of blacks and whites would have gone to such great lengths.

17
ChuckMartel's picture

ChuckMartel (not verified)

Ergo "Saint Lincoln". The idea we endured a civil war, a conflagration which ended the lives of 2-4% of the entire population of the country to free slaves is preposterous on its face. It's cloyingly sweet propaganda. Only a desire for power motivates that degree of expense. (If the leftists ever get around to reading all of Lincoln's quotes on the races you might want to get that visit to the Lincoln Memorial in sooner rather than later.)

18

If you unpack that comment Mr. Martel it says:

" (1) We know logically that the war must have been selfish, because I cannot conceive of great sacrifice for others.  The idea of principled war is 'preposterous on its face.'

(2) I've got a shipload of quotes here for you, locked and loaded. "

Please do.  That's what I asked for, a correct history by winners, losers, whoever.

....

I'd find your comment more stimulating if you responded specifically to Papa Bell's remarks about Lincoln's election campaign, Matt's point about the 13th Amendment, mine about the Gettysburg Address, and so forth.

Mr. Martel, I've known many, many Servicemembers who fought in WWII.  I know for a fact that they sailed across the ocean NOT out of desire for American power, but out of compassion for our Allies in Europe.  There was a mad dog over there and they put it down, to ensure liberty for England & Co.

Us being baseball fans, you'd think we would be familiar with examples of men who spared no degree of expense to unselfishly help in WWII.

- Jeff

19

...there is misanthropic anti-social thinking. Such a claim...that no war was ever fought for any reason other than selfish grabs for power...is increasingly common today, in the era of aggressive secularist, moral relativism and the accompanying strain of loathing for the nature of man that follows.

No man who thought humanity had the spark of divine in him would conclude that it was impossible for Lincoln to have considered the war worth fighting for reasons other than selfish ones. I am no Pollyanna...I think humans are fallen, flawed creatures. But I think we are just as capable of love and mercy and the impulse toward justice and liberty as we are capable of hatred, lust for power, greed, and evil. And I don't see anything Lincoln had to gain for himself by fighting the war. It got him MURDERED. And he knew that was a risk. He did expand the power of the executive branch while prosecuting the war, but surely there are less risky ways to do that. Obama had a pen and a phone...that worked pretty well and didn't kill 600,000 people.

20
ChuckMartel's picture

ChuckMartel (not verified)

I meant politicians and in this case *Lincoln* wanting to maintain the country's power. Which I thought would be the assumption being that I never mentioned soldiers. To be clear, I'd never imply that soldier's from the Confederacy or those from the greatest generation were motivated by power. Thats just not the reality of what motivates the boots on the ground. And as far as principled war, The idea of principled war is preposterous on its face when in context it is so selectively implemented. Especially considering Lincoln's own quotes on the races, emancipation seems much more likely primarily motivated as a means to a crushing end of the South's economy and ability to wage war than saintly altruism. Speaking of, save for an amazingly generous unpacking of Lincoln's decisions I'm (as with most human behaviour) inclined to lean toward humans being human. Yes, I'm a cynic but rarely dissapointed, sadly. ; )

21

The South seceded before Lincoln even took office and the South attacked Ft. Sumter knowing full well it would start an all out war. There was absolutely no need for the South to do so, if they hadn't attacked then they could have gone about creating thier own country peacefully. The South wanted war, and they made sure they got it.

And my original comment already refuted the notion that winners write the history. The South lost the war yet southerners have successfully recast thier motivations for secession and the war into something noble.

22

I do, however, find arguments that Lincoln didn't consider slavery to be an issue worth fighting against to be completely unconvincing. So you suppose he bent all the rules, twisted every arm, practically sold his soul...all to get the thirteenth amendment passed...because he was settling a bet or something? You don't go to that level of political effort to abolish slavery by force of law to accumulate power. Such a measure did nothing at all to accumulate power for Lincoln.

23

Repectfully, it's a good thing to be aware of.  This rhetorical device attempts to move your position far, far past itself and then argue against that.  Typically the argument moves your position to an ABSOLUTE position, which of course is logically easy to attack.

A says, "Martin Luther King very importantly moved race relations forward in this nation."

B scoffs, "So you're saying MLK was a perfect man and should be venerated like Buddha?  He had an affair once.  Your view of him is preposterous on its face."

About 50% of Twitter posts contain this device.  ;- )

....

I have no idea what qualifies a man for literal sainthood.  But in my best understanding of Lincoln's life, he sacrificed more for others' good than did I, you, or did Mr. Martel.

24

I intended the question not to trap him but to call my original point back to attention...was hoping he'd address it.

I apologize...certainly didn't want to argue like a Twitter rat

25

Am referring to Mr. Martel's argument against Lincoln's sainthood, to which you appropriately responded.

Exactly as you say, there is a 'justified cynicism,' a "Show Me" attitude towards others motivations.  And then there is the counterproductive attitude that says, "Whatever their reason is, it must be bad."

Not trying to pile on to one post, but if the argument is "Those people must have been power-hungry because that's how people are," you'll find me on the other side of that one all day long.  There are a lot of white crows in that forest ...

26

disapproved of slavery on a personal basis and felt compellted to describe his opposition to it on moral, ethical, and even legal grounds on a consistent, ongoing basis throughout his life leading up to his Presidential run (when political pressures stayed his tongue where they previously would not have done so).

I think it is indisputable to claim that Lincoln wished to live in a country (and world!) where slavery was no longer practiced.  Ditto Thomas Jefferson (which is, perhaps, the only meaningful overlap to be found in these two mens' public personae).  Any assertion to the contrary is a poorly-conceived one in my estimation; we've got piles of letters and transcripts of speeches where Lincoln makes clear his personal and moral/ethical/ideological opposition to slavery.

Where I take issue with the historical presentation of Lincoln is where it comes to his political will and aims when it came to slavery.  I don't post on this subject without including some variant of the following: If Lincoln had declared without reservation prior to the Civil War's engagement that he aimed to free the slaves, by force if necessary, I would find little or no fault in his conduct prior to, during, and after the Civil War.  

Declaring the end of such an evil institution to be his primary goal, and doing so with the threat of force (unnecessary, as Britain demonstrated, but a meaningful and important gesture to be sure!) would have planted him in reality precisely where the history books attempt to paint him.  But the letter to Greeley is, in my view, the final nail in the coffin against the suggestion that his goal was to free the slaves or end the institution of slavery.  Ending slavery was a byproduct of his other goals (whatever they were--I really don't much care, though I could be compelled to care by a convicing argument), and I think we do ourselves a disservice by insisting, as a society that looks to me like one with fingers stubbornly jammed in its own ears, that Honest Abe's most considered words on the matter are not indicative of his true motives.

He said his aim was to preserve the Union, not end slavery.  The two were interconnected, yes, but I'm going to take the direct source on this one--unless we're beginning the conversation by saying that we can't trust what Lincoln said on this all-important matter, in which case...what are we even talking about?

27

Let us suppose, just hypothetically my pro-choice friends, that 150 years from now they all regard late-term abortion as an atrocity.  

(Or use the topic of world hunger, by that time eradicated, and George Jetson asking why Obama spent money on arms rather than food.  Or sub in your own topic.)

Jonezie, wouldn't they at that time then see most (all) pro-life Presidents as lacking this 'political will' to match their personal beliefs?  Not many politicians win elections as PURISTS precisely because the US electorate forces moderation.

Question is whether every effective US President has 'lacked the political will' to match his private beliefs ...

...  especially on issues that are so volatile we risk rioting or even civil war?

28

Usually that's a sign that I might not have developed my position well enough between my own ears.  But let me give it another try just in case:

Lincoln was on the record as opposing the institution of slavery as early as his twenties, I think.  Back in the early 1800s, my understanding is that this was hardly a dangerous or revolutionary attitude to adopt; even Thomas Jefferson wrote at length about the evils of slavery as an institution.  His personal position on this issue is, I think, beyond dispute.

Let's switch to Jefferson for a simile.  When the opportunity to make the Louisiana Purchase arrived in the dead of night, Jefferson writes at great length about how tortured that decision-making process was for him.  He was adamantly opposed to the Federal government having the kind of authority necessary to make the Louisiana Purchase possible even from a logistical/legal standpoint, and yet he signed on the dotted line because he knew that it was the right thing to do for the nation.  Jefferson the President, then, becomes a product of his decision to subordinate his personal preferences to the political realities of the day.

It's the same with Lincoln, except I see it happening in reverse.  I have zero dispute with Abraham Lincoln the man, who seems to me to be a fairly exemplary figure when compared to most of the top-tier politicians we get to deal with these days.  But when it comes to his implementation of policy, he (in order for the narrative of 'the Civil War was fought to end slavery' to hold up) subordinated political reality to his personal preferences, going so far as to speak out both sides of his mouth on the issue of slavery from the Presidential pulpit.  He said that he was personally against slavery, and politically he opposed the expansion of the institution, but he also effectively put a tax on the institution of slavery and used the monies gained from that tax to build the very industry and infrastructure that would enable him to raise those taxes ever higher.  Was this an elegant solution to the problem?  Some would say yes, absolutely, and if I squint at it from a given angle I might even provisionally agree.  But it was not bold in its leadership, it was not earth-shaking or breathtaking in its resolve, and--above all--it was not honest.

It seems to me that he made his way into Presidential politics by embodying everything we despise about politicians: the duplicity, the self-serving and obscurant statements, the hypocrisy of profiting by slavery while condemning it, etc..  But for all of that, I absolutely will concede that this particular character archetype appears to be the one which experiences the most success in the USA's iteration of republican democracy.  He did it better than anyone before, and possibly better than anyone since, and for that he should absolutely be celebrated. I don't even mean that as a backhanded compliment; I mean it earnestly and without reservation.  He was a truly historic political figure, and we should learn from and celebrate him with every bit as much effort as we already do.  But we should celebrate him for the right reasons--the real reasons behind his success--not for the absurd caricature we're presented with in the history texts.

So to Jeff's query regarding a hot button issue of our time (abortion, for instance) and how posterity will view leaders of today through that particular lens, my answer is (expectedly?) long-winded:

We common folk are largely a product of our times with respect to which issues consume our attentions.  We don't really get to determine, individually, which issues are brought front and center for debate.  That's what our leaders are for, and it plays a vital role in how we select our leaders because a leader does get to choose in a limited fashion how his/her constituents prioritize the various issues surrounding our public consciousness.  If (God forbid) our nation were ever in a state of such relative peace and tranquility that a purely internal affair like abortion could thereby be driven to the top of the collective priority ladder, and at that point a leader who claimed to be Pro-Life acquiesced to the Pro-Choice crowd, knowing full well that his/her constituents expected that issue to receive the full deployment of whatever political capital was available to him/her, such a figure would rightly be castigated for lacking the political will to act in accordance with his/her principles.  But for a (say) President whose country was just attacked to subordinate focus on national defense to an issue like abortion is, I suspect, unthinkable.  

So, TL;DR version: if said leader had the opportunity to make abortion a top-tier issue, and if that leader had sufficient public sentiment to make an honest-to-God fight out of it in the public square (even one where the outcome was far from assured), and if that leader still went against his/her principles, then yeah--posterity should regard that leader as a bum unworthy of canonization.

Hope that answers the question.  If it doesn't, I'm happy to take another crack at it.

29

also explains why I have come to think negatively about George W. Bush and Barack Obama.  GW had the opportunity, the political capital, and the (professed) desire to address both Social Security and Public Education--yet he made no lasting impact on either of those fronts.  Whether he deigned to try as hard as he could or simply failed after giving it his all, I judge a leader more by his (Intention) x (Results).  

Bush Jr.'s failures on Social Security and Public Education reform are what define him, to me.  Ditto Barack Obama; he promised to improve health care cost and efficacy for the average American, and failed to do so in fairly spectacular fashion.  Both men curtailed individual liberties (Patriot Act for GW; FATCA & health insurance mandates+financial punishment for non-compliance for Obama) but neither delivered on the precious few promises they made which I fully supported.  So what we're left with in their wake is diminished freedom and a continually deteriorating framework of education, retirement provisioning, and health care.

30

Not only did Lincoln run on a platform of a complete outlawing of slavery in the territories which would necessarily lead to total abolition, but in his very first speech as a political candidate running for a federal office he explicitly insisted that the nation must make a choice between being entirely free or entirely slave. Since he clearly sided with being entirely free, he was announcing loud and clear to the entire nation that his political goal was to eliminate slavery everywhere. That's why the South seceded before he even took office as president, because they knew that his election meant slavery in the South was doomed.

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