Lincoln: Tyrant, Hypocrite or Consumate Statesman? (Dinesh defends our 2d Greatest Prez)

thehistorynet. ^ | Feb 12, 05 | D'Souza

[churchillbuff]

The key to understanding Lincoln's philosophy of statesmanship is that he always sought the meeting point between what was right in theory and what could be achieved in practice. By Dinesh D'Souza

Most Americans -- including most historians -- regard Abraham Lincoln as the nation's greatest president. But in recent years powerful movements have gathered, both on the political right and the left, to condemn Lincoln as a flawed and even wicked man.

For both camps, the debunking of Lincoln usually begins with an exposé of the "Lincoln myth," which is well described in William Lee Miller's 2002 book Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography. How odd it is, Miller writes, that an "unschooled" politician "from the raw frontier villages of Illinois and Indiana" could become such a great president. "He was the myth made real," Miller writes, "rising from an actual Kentucky cabin made of actual Kentucky logs all the way to the actual White House."

Lincoln's critics have done us all a service by showing that the actual author of the myth is Abraham Lincoln himself. It was Lincoln who, over the years, carefully crafted the public image of himself as Log Cabin Lincoln, Honest Abe and the rest of it. Asked to describe his early life, Lincoln answered, "the short and simple annals of the poor," referring to Thomas Gray's poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." Lincoln disclaimed great aspirations for himself, noting that if people did not vote for him, he would return to obscurity, for he was, after all, used to disappointments.

These pieties, however, are inconsistent with what Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, said about him: "His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest." Admittedly in the ancient world ambition was often viewed as a great vice. In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Brutus submits his reason for joining the conspiracy against Caesar: his fear that Caesar had grown too ambitious. But as founding father and future president James Madison noted in The Federalist, the American system was consciously designed to attract ambitious men. Such ambition was presumed natural to a politician and favorable to democracy as long as it sought personal distinction by promoting the public good through constitutional means.

What unites the right-wing and left-wing attacks on Lincoln, of course, is that they deny that Lincoln respected the law and that he was concerned with the welfare of all. The right-wing school -- made up largely of Southerners and some libertarians -- holds that Lincoln was a self-serving tyrant who rode roughshod over civil liberties, such as the right to habeas corpus. Lincoln is also accused of greatly expanding the size of the federal government. Some libertarians even charge -- and this is not intended as a compliment -- that Lincoln was the true founder of the welfare state. His right-wing critics say that despite his show of humility, Lincoln was a megalomaniacal man who was willing to destroy half the country to serve his Caesarian ambitions. In an influential essay, the late Melvin E. Bradford, an outspoken conservative, excoriated Lincoln as a moral fanatic who, determined to enforce his Manichaean vision -- one that sees a cosmic struggle between good and evil -- on the country as a whole, ended up corrupting American politics and thus left a "lasting and terrible impact on the nation's destiny."

Although Bradford viewed Lincoln as a kind of manic abolitionist, many in the right-wing camp deny that the slavery issue was central to the Civil War. Rather, they insist, the war was driven primarily by economic motives. Essentially, the industrial North wanted to destroy the economic base of the South. Historian Charles Adams, in When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, published in 2000, contends that the causes leading up to the Civil War had virtually nothing to do with slavery.

This approach to rewriting history has been going on for more than a century. Alexander Stephens, former vice president of the Confederacy, published a two-volume history of the Civil War between 1868 and 1870 in which he hardly mentioned slavery, insisting that the war was an attempt to preserve constitutional government from the tyranny of the majority. But this is not what Stephens said in the great debates leading up to the war. In his "Cornerstone" speech, delivered in Savannah, Ga., on March 21, 1861, at the same time that the South was in the process of seceding, Stephens said that the American Revolution had been based on a premise that was "fundamentally wrong." That premise was, as Stephens defined it, "the assumption of equality of the races." Stephens insisted that instead: "Our new [Confederate] government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea. Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man. Slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great and moral truth."

This speech is conspicuously absent from the right's revisionist history. And so are the countless affirmations of black inferiority and the "positive good" of slavery -- from John C. Calhoun's attacks on the Declaration of Independence to South Carolina Senator James H. Hammond's insistence that "the rock of Gibraltar does not stand so firm on its basis as our slave system." It is true, of course, that many whites who fought on the Southern side in the Civil War did not own slaves. But, as Calhoun himself pointed out in one speech, they too derived an important benefit from slavery: "With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and the poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals." Calhoun's point is that the South had conferred on all whites a kind of aristocracy of birth, so that even the most wretched and degenerate white man was determined in advance to be better and more socially elevated than the most intelligent and capable black man. That's why the poor whites fought -- to protect that privilege.

Contrary to Bradford's high-pitched accusations, Lincoln approached the issue of slavery with prudence and moderation. This is not to say that he waffled on the morality of slavery. "You think slavery is right, and ought to be extended," Lincoln wrote Stephens on the eve of the war, "while we think it is wrong, and ought to be restricted." As Lincoln clearly asserts, it was not his intention to get rid of slavery in the Southern states. Lincoln conceded that the American founders had agreed to tolerate slavery in the Southern states, and he confessed that he had no wish and no power to interfere with it there. The only issue -- and it was an issue on which Lincoln would not bend -- was whether the federal government could restrict slavery in the new territories. This was the issue of the presidential campaign of 1860; this was the issue that determined secession and war.

Lincoln argued that the South had no right to secede -- that the Southern states had entered the Union as the result of a permanent compact with the Northern states. That Union was based on the principle of majority rule, with constitutional rights carefully delineated for the minority. Lincoln insisted that since he had been legitimately elected, and since the power to regulate slavery in the territories was nowhere proscribed in the Constitution, Southern secession amounted to nothing more than one group's decision to leave the country because it did not like the results of a presidential election, and no constitutional democracy could function under such an absurd rule. Of course the Southerners objected that they should not be forced to live under a regime that they considered tyrannical, but Lincoln countered that any decision to dissolve the original compact could only occur with the consent of all the parties involved. Once again, it makes no sense to have such agreements when any group can unilaterally withdraw from them and go its own way.

The rest of the libertarian and right-wing case against Lincoln is equally without merit. Yes, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and arrested Southern sympathizers, but let us not forget that the nation was in a desperate war in which its very survival was at stake. Discussing habeas corpus, Lincoln insisted that it made no sense for him to protect this one constitutional right and allow the very Union established by the Constitution, the very framework for the protection of all rights, to be obliterated. Of course the federal government expanded during the Civil War, as it expanded during the Revolutionary War, and during World War II. Governments need to be strong to fight wars. The evidence for the right-wing insistence that Lincoln was the founder of the modern welfare state stems from the establishment, begun during his administration, of a pension program for Union veterans and support for their widows and orphans. Those were, however, programs aimed at a specific, albeit large, part of the population. The welfare state came to America in the 20th century. Franklin Roosevelt should be credited, or blamed, for that. He institutionalized it, and Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon expanded it.

The left-wing group of Lincoln critics, composed of liberal scholars and social activists, is harshly critical of Lincoln on the grounds that he was a racist who did not really care about ending slavery. Their indictment of Lincoln is that he did not oppose slavery outright, only the extension of it, that he opposed laws permitting intermarriage and even opposed social and political equality between the races. If the right-wingers disdain Lincoln for being too aggressively antislavery, the left-wingers scorn him for not being antislavery enough. Both groups, however, agree that Lincoln was a self-promoting hypocrite who said one thing while doing another.

Some of Lincoln's defenders have sought to vindicate him from these attacks by contending that he was a "man of his time." This will not do, because there were several persons of that time, notably the social-reformer Grimké sisters, Angelina and Sarah, and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, who forthrightly and unambiguously attacked slavery and called for immediate and complete abolition. In one of his speeches, Sumner said that while there are many issues on which political men can and should compromise, slavery is not such an issue: "This will not admit of compromise. To be wrong on this is to be wholly wrong. It is our duty to defend freedom, unreservedly, and careless of the consequences."

Lincoln's modern liberal critics are, whether they know it or not, the philosophical descendants of Sumner. One cannot understand Lincoln without understanding why he agreed with Sumner's goals while consistently opposing the strategy of the abolitionists. The abolitionists, Lincoln thought, approached the restricting or ending of slavery with self-righteous moral display. They wanted to be in the right and -- as Sumner himself says -- damn the consequences. In Lincoln's view, abolition was a noble sentiment, but abolitionist tactics, such as burning the Constitution and advocating violence, were not the way to reach their goal.

We can answer the liberal critics by showing them why Lincoln's understanding of slavery, and his strategy for defeating it, was superior to that of Sumner and his modern-day followers. Lincoln knew that the statesman, unlike the moralist, cannot be content with making the case against slavery. He must find a way to implement his principles to the degree that circumstances permit. The key to understanding Lincoln is that he always sought the meeting point between what was right in theory and what could be achieved in practice. He always sought the common denominator between what was good to do and what the people would go along with. In a democratic society this is the only legitimate way to advance a moral agenda.

Consider the consummate skill with which Lincoln deflected the prejudices of his supporters without yielding to them. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates during the race for the Illinois Senate, Stephen Douglas repeatedly accused Lincoln of believing that blacks and whites were intellectually equal, of endorsing full political rights for blacks, and of supporting "amalgamation" or intermarriage between the races. If these charges could be sustained, or if large numbers of people believed them to be true, then Lincoln's career was over. Even in the free state of Illinois -- as throughout the North -- there was widespread opposition to full political and social equality for blacks.

Lincoln handled this difficult situation by using a series of artfully conditional responses. "Certainly the Negro is not our equal in color -- perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man. In pointing out that more has been given to you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little which has been given to him. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy." Notice that Lincoln only barely recognizes the prevailing prejudice. He never acknowledges black inferiority; he merely concedes the possibility. And the thrust of his argument is that even if blacks were inferior, that is not a warrant for taking away their rights.

Facing the charge of racial amalgamation, Lincoln said, "I protest against that counterfeit logic which concludes that because I do not want a black woman for a slave, I must necessarily want her for a wife." Lincoln is not saying that he wants, or does not want, a black woman for his wife. He is neither supporting nor opposing racial intermarriage. He is simply saying that from his antislavery position it does not follow that he endorses racial amalgamation. Elsewhere Lincoln turned antiblack prejudices against Douglas by saying that slavery was the institution that had produced the greatest racial intermixing and the largest number of mulattoes.

Lincoln was exercising the same prudent statesmanship when he wrote to New York newspaper publisher Horace Greeley asserting: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that." The letter was written on August 22, 1862, almost a year and a half after the Civil War broke out, when the South was gaining momentum and the outcome was far from certain. From the time of secession, Lincoln was desperately eager to prevent border states such as Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri from seceding. These states had slavery, and Lincoln knew that if the issue of the war was cast openly as the issue of slavery, his chances of keeping the border states in the Union were slim. And if all the border states seceded, Lincoln was convinced, and rightly so, that the cause of the Union was gravely imperiled.

Moreover, Lincoln was acutely aware that many people in the North were vehemently antiblack and saw themselves as fighting to save their country rather than to free slaves. Lincoln framed the case against the Confederacy in terms of saving the Union in order to maintain his coalition -- a coalition whose victory was essential to the antislavery cause. And ultimately it was because of Lincoln that slavery came to an end. That is why the right wing can never forgive him.

In my view, Lincoln was the true "philosophical statesman," one who was truly good and truly wise. Standing in front of his critics, Lincoln is a colossus, and all of the Lilliputian arrows hurled at him bounce harmlessly to the ground. It is hard to put any other president -- not even George Washington -- in the same category as Abraham Lincoln. He is simply the greatest practitioner of democratic statesmanship that America and the world have yet produced.

[rdb3]

I've read hundreds of books and articles on the war from all sorts of points of view. My fundamental conception of the war is vastly different than it was when I first started studying it. I still find new facts that alter my views of the event from time to time. But the rate of change in my views has declined steadily as time has gone by.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the Civil War and plenty of abuses on both sides. Those who continually try to place blame on one side or the other in these threads will simply fail. It is sad to see facts ignored because they don't fit the propaganda of one side or the other. Those who engage in it are doing a disservice to the memory of both Lincoln and Lee who, despite any other flaws, desired an honorable reconciliation and reunion with malice toward none.

---

Damn, man. That's the most well-reasoned, well-thought, and refreshing take on this subject that I've read in a long time.

---

Its not a black and white answer. Very few things are.

---

Didn't catch your pun, did you? ;-) Next time you're in Forrest City, honk your horn 3 times for me.

[basque]

When I teach Civil War, I offer five probable options as to cause:
Irrepressible conflict, slavery, sectionalism/nationalism, and competing economies. That said, I announce,"You have paid your money. Now take your choice. Personally, I favor irrepressible conflict as will most people who pass this course."

[GOPcapitalist]

But, still, the smaller the percentage of slaves and slaveowners, the less likely it was that a state would join the rebellion. That's a pretty good wholesale indicator, though of course, it can't account for everything.

...or it could just be a spurious correlation that hasn't been demonstrated under reputable statistical scrutiny.

[rdb3]

The only thing good that came from his actions, was that slaves were freed. But the price to our country was NOT worth it.

---

Mike, Renee, mark this statement. #56

Of course, this great⁵-grandson of slaves was not asked.

[rwfromkansas]

Interesting.

I guess Lincoln was for ending slavery, but not having them live among us.

[djreece]

Great article.

(I just wish he had been more careful in his use of the term "the right." He seems to imply it is racist and pro-slavery.)

[cyborg]

Not worth it???I don't get it.

[Ditto]

Do you have a source for that quote?

[1iron]

Question: "What shall we do about those who seek our total annihilation?"

[Drennan Whyte]

Lincoln started this country down the road to big government...

I keep hearing you Southerners say that, and I suppose we're just supposed to accept that as true, but I would be interested in hearing you expound on that claim a bit more.

[libertarianben]

Someone already posted this on another Lincoln thread, but I'm stealing it anyway lol. It was a good point.

We are not one country today due to abolishing slavery but rather due to the fact that a firm and costly precedent has been established by Lincoln that attempts to separate by any section will be suppressed. I am also of the belief that this has produced undesirable consequences, particularly in that liberal regions of our country (new england and the northeast for example) have been able at times to exercise control of the U.S. Government and enact policies that were not desired by the more conservative regions of the country.

[Drennan Whyte]

All through the war Lincoln talked about and worked toward deporting every last black in the United States.

Considering how impossible it would have been to forcibly deport 4 million people against their will, and given that while Lincoln may have been may things he was not a stupid man, would you have anything to support that he advocated such a ridiculous scheme?

[libertarianben]

Question: "What shall we do about those who seek our total annihilation?"

Answer: "Send them to hell!"

[cyborg]

Thanks for posting that but it leaves me especially unnerved and unconvinced.

[libertarianben]

Thanks for posting that but it leaves me especially unnerved and unconvinced.

Unconvinced of what, may I ask?

Here's some quotes by Lincoln I think people might find interesting:

"Any People anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing governement and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." Speech by Lincoln in Congrees January 1848.

Here's the punch line:

"No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Plainly, the central idea of sucession, is the essence of anarchy." Lincoln speech made some time later.

I believe this known as a flip-flop.

How does he explain that other states thought of leaving the union long before the "Civil War?" Mass. for example.

[libertarianben]

I believe this is known as a flip-flop is what I meant to say.

[cyborg]

All this armchair theorizing at the expense of black people. Besides I want to hear Texconfederate explain why 'it wasn't worth it' hisself! You don't make such assinine statements without some backup. Very interesting how when coming to blacks it's never worth it but somehow other foreign wars and intervention are worth it.

[PLMerite]

One of the great things about being both a Southerner and a Republican is that I can hold Lincoln up as hero or villain, depending upon which hat I'm wearing.

[djreece]

But the price to our country was NOT worth it.

Your statement is sickening.

Personally, I believe the horror of the Civil War was the high price our country had to pay for tolerating the evil of slavery at all. The founders should not have compromised on the issue. It was a fatal flaw.

[x]

There doesn't seem to be much point in arguing "It was all about ...," "It wasn't all about ..." Historians take it for granted that there's rarely one reason why anything happens.

But it looks like you're playing a slippery game. You say: "Sure. Don't get me wrong, its my opinion that slavery was the fulcrum, the prime mover." And then, 'But I think its fairly meaningless to use the criteria of "the war would not have happened if"....as the determinant of causation. I would posit that if the program of industrialization and resultant immigration in the north had not occurred that northern sentiments would have been damped as they had been for decades before living with slavery as a neighbor. Thus no war and no secession. Just because I believe this is true does not lead me to say "industrialization and immigration is the ultimate cause."'

If something is "the fulcrum, the prime mover," it's likely that the event caused couldn't have happened without it. Of course any unique event results from a particular combination of unique events, but it looks like you are trying to equate various kinds of causes and not distinguishing between those that are more and less important.

According to Aristotle there are formal, material, efficient, and final causes. Something like state's rights may be a formal or material cause -- part of the general situtation that made the war possible -- without being an efficient or a final cause. Industrialization, and the invention of the cotton gin fall in a similar category. They helped to make possible secession and war, but they seem to be more contributory than primary factors. "Fulcrum" can be a pretty slippery term, but if slavery was in some way "the prime mover" that means it was more important than other contributory or secondary causes.

Discussions here tend to focus more on guilt and sin, good and evil, purity and impurity, rather than on what happened and why. Very often people are trying to get a "directed verdict." They assume that slavery was wrong and the South couldn't have been wrong, therefore slavery couldn't have been an important part of what the war was about.

So these discussions tend to be of limited use as history, and we get long pointless arguments about whether the war was "all about" slavery or not. If you recognize the importance of slavery, then you can also admit the significance of other factors without playing the chump's "it was all about"/"it wasn't all about" game.