The Danger in Republicans' Fight to Own Lincoln's Legacy

American Thinker ^ | 08/27/2018 | By William Sullivan

[SeekAndFind]

Human beings (and Americans are no exception) like their heroes and villains easily identifiable and the explanation of historical events simple. As such, both Republicans and Democrats have built easily digestible historical narratives regarding American political history since the Civil War. Peculiarly, there seems to be a debate about who gets to own the legacy of Abraham Lincoln.

On the left, the meandering and incoherent narrative goes like this. Lincoln and his mighty Union army launched a war against the racist, slave-holding Confederacy to rid America of the abominable institution of slavery and make equal citizens of the former slaves. Therefore, modern Democrats own his legacy of greatness, because Republicans "switched" to become Democrats at some undefined time before FDR's New Deal when all those big-government, socially conscious, expansive, and redistributive federal laws were visited upon all the states. Then, somehow, they switched back at some undefined time after LBJ's Great Society and the creation of the welfare state.

On the right, it goes like this. Lincoln and his mighty Union armies launched a war against the racist, slave-holding Confederacy to rid America of the abominable institution of slavery and make equal citizens of the former slaves. Because Lincoln was a Republican, modern Republicans own Lincoln's legacy of greatness. Dinesh D'Souza currently has a new book, movie, and massive campaign underway to prove to Americans that this is the case, suggesting that Trump is a modern avatar of Lincoln or some such.

Both arguments might fit nicely into simple talking points, but neither is the least bit accurate.

The foundation of both narratives – that Lincoln launched his war against the Confederacy to destroy the institution of slavery in order to make equal American citizens of the freed slaves – is never questioned, because doing so is political heresy.

[Teacher317]

“Is never questioned”
The causes of the war have been and are still questioned. What planet has the author been on?

I think the author means for those whose entire education is based on what they heard in 10th grade and on TV. For that 85+% of the citizenry, it is not questioned.

[BroJoeK]

Ohioan: "It would be well--for this discussion can only divide the Conservative vote in 2018--if we put off the historical & oft hysterical--revival of emotional old arguments, until we first accomplish what is desperately needed in November, 2018."

Certainly a noble thought, but Lost Cousers are a small enough minority they will have no affect on any important elections.
But like many minorities they can make a lot of noise with their lies, and it's important we not cede the field here to them.

You disagree?

[BroJoeK]

Ingmar: "He launched the invasion to prevent their leaving the Union, even going so far as to drive Virginia from the Union by trying to force them to be the heavies."

Well... first, Lincoln "launched" no invasion until months after Confederates began seizing Federal properties, threatening Union officials, firing on Union ships and attacking Union troops in Union states.

Second, there's no evidence Lincoln was surprised by Virgina's secession and plenty that he expected it after having spent weeks trying to negotiate a different outcome.
But the bottom line was that Virginia's ratification statement required some "injury or oppression" to declare secession, and for that any excuse like defense of Fort Sumter would serve.

[DiogenesLamp]

I've noted many times how the divide seems to be between the Hamiltonians (Big City, Big Banks, Big Power) and the Jeffersonians (Rural, Agricultural) ever since the nation began.

The NorthEasterners greatly resented what they perceived as a takeover of the Revolution by the Virginians, and you are right. They felt they should be in charge of everything.

People get stuck on this "Republican" vs "Democrat" thing, and this is an inaccurate distinction. The clearer distinction between Liberals and Conservatives is the difference between Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians.

[DiogenesLamp]

Didn't know about that, did you? :)

Also you keep ignoring the fact that money coming from the South and going to the North was the primary cause of the North's insistence that their coalition should continue ruling over the South and enacting legislation that kept this money drain flowing from the South to the North.

They wanted to keep the money flowing. Then they realized they would lose even more if the South set up competing industries with the extra capital they would acquire from trading directly with Europe.

The Northern power elites realized it would become a battle for their economic survival eventually, and that is why they absolutely had to stop the South from establishing normal trade relations with Europe outside of that power elite's control.

[DiogenesLamp]

Why would Captain Anderson have to “sneak” into a fort he already commanded,

It is an established fact that Anderson sneaked into the Fort in the middle of the night in December of 1860. He probably sneaked in because he believed that if the people of Charleston had known of his intentions, they would have stopped him.

and that belonged to the federal government?

Once South Carolina seceded, it ceased to belong to the Federal Government. It was part of the City of Charleston, and therefore belonged to them.

Why would he spike and burn the guns at Moultrie if he planned to shell the city or to wage war against its inhabitants?

Now that is a silly question. That is exactly what any sensible military man would do if he planned to wage war against its inhabitants.

Again, you forget the people of Charleston were told that the forts would be turned over to them. Imagine being told that, and then the next day you wake up to discover that the occupying force has committed belligerent acts against you.

You would think those men are liars and cannot thereafter be trusted.

[Pelham]

“People get stuck on this “Republican” vs “Democrat” thing, and this is an inaccurate distinction.”

Well for one thing neither of those two parties existed for the first 50 years of American self-government, counting from the First Continental Congress.

The Federalist Party was the first political party, it began with those who wanted to replace the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution- Hamilton founded it. Washington and Adams would be the two Federalist presidents.

After that came a long string of Democratic-Republican presidents, a party that contained members of what would eventually split into the Whigs and the Democrats.

The Democrats formed from the Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren faction of the Democratic-Republicans.

The Whigs came from the Federalists and anti-Jackson members of the Democratic-Republicans. In the mid 1850s it joined with a bunch of minor parties to form the Republicans.

People moved freely between the various parties. John Quincy Adams managed to be in five of them, Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, Anti-Masonic, and finally Whig. If he had lived ling enough he surely would have added Republican to that list.

The parties themselves changed character according to which faction ended up in control. A Bourbon Democrat like Cleveland was more conservative than most people today. A Republican progressive like Teddy Roosevelt was, well, a progressive- he even ran on the Progressive Party ticket in 1912.

The Democrat vs Republican storytelling of Dinesh D’Souza and those like him is comic book stuff. It turns the complex history of America political parties into tasty little snacks suitable for children, assuming you want to mislead children. Most people won’t know any better because they haven’t spent their idle time reading the history themselves, and they trust D’Souza because he’s become a celebrity. At best he’s a celebrity, at worst he’s a charlatan, he’s certainly not a historian.

“The NorthEasterners greatly resented what they perceived as a takeover of the Revolution by the Virginians, and you are right. They felt they should be in charge of everything.”

If you want the history of that, and how it stoked the fire that led to civil war, get Thomas Flemings’ “A Disease in the Public Mind”- the title is taken from a James Buchanan quote, Buchanan believed that a form of insanity had taken control of the American public and it was going to end up in war, a war that he was trying to prevent.

[Pelham]

“That darned Lincoln. He should not have triggered the Confederates. It’s HIS fault they shot at the Union guys.”

Of course Lincoln said there was no such thing as Confederates, there were simply illegal factions in control of several American states.

But all the same the bombardment of Fort Sumter wasn’t the first time that “Confederates” had opened fire. The first incident was on January 9, 1861 while James Buchanan was still President. Cadets from the Citadel opened fire and hit The Star of the West when it attempted to resupply Fort Sumter.

Buchanan wasn’t seeking to get triggered into a civil war so unlike Lincoln he didn’t call up 75,000 troops for the purpose of marching south and teaching the rebels who was boss. Buchanan had previously sent an army into the Utah Territory to instruct Mormon settlers to quit attacking the territorial government, but he thought that States had different constitutional rights than territories, even though he personally opposed secession.

[rockrr]

buchanan was a pussy who peed his pants when his country needed him.

[BroJoeK]

Seek and Find: "Would it be inaccurate to say that had there been no Civil War, we would not have the United States of America today?"

DoodleDawg: "It is possible, but nobody can say for sure..."

Bonemaker: "Depends on whether the federal government of the time had adhered to the ideals behind the founding and left the South alone."

DiogenesLamp: "From what I have learned of the era, there was a pretty good likelihood that the CSA would have taken over the entire Union.
It would have certainly gotten all the border states, and then it would have slowly acquired other states which would have discovered that their best financial interests lay with the CSA.
We might have seen New York replaced as the financial capitol of the US with Norfolk or Charleston, or perhaps even New Orleans."

OIFVeteran: "If the southern states had not seceded and started a rebellion we probably would have had legal chattel slavery in this country until the early to mid-twentieth century."

First, all are correct, depending on your definition of "United States" -- absent Civil War a rump country would remain, slowly or rapidly shrinking as each new Confederate demand resulted in more lost Union territories & states.
At some point the overall balance of power would flip and Northern cities like New York petition to join the Confederacy.

Second, however, it's important to remember that DiogenesLamp's obsession with promoting the Port of Charleston SC is as fanciful today as it was in 1861.
Today the Port of New York & New Jersey is ranked #3, behind New Orleans (S. Louisiana) and Houston.
In foreign exports, NY is #7, imports #2.

In the meantime, Charleston SC's port is ranked #34 overall, just one ahead of Boston.
Even in 1860 Charleston was smaller than New Orleans and Baltimore, roughly equivalent to Mobile & Savanah, both of which today far surpass Charleston.

So DiogenesLamp's notion that Charleston was destined under a Confederacy to become North America's premier port city is pure cloud-gazing.
Long before that could potentially happen, New York itself would join the Confederacy.

Third, but the real problem with SeekAndFind's question is: how could there not be a Civil War?
Answer: only if the Union conceded every new Confederate demand for states (i.e., Kentucky) & territories (i.e., Oklahoma).
Such a "Union", if not fought for, would surely deserve its fate on the ash-can of history.

Finally, on OIFVeteran's implied question on when, if ever, Confederates would abolish slavery, the answer is: a nation Founded explicitly & Constitutionally to protect slavery was certain never to abolish it, absent some huge existential crisis.
What sort of crisis?

Well, suppose that all the nations of Europe told Confederates they would refuse to import another bale of Southern cotton until Confederates abolished slavery, would that do it?
Maybe, but the chances of that happening any time in the century after 1860 are: zero, especially if, as seems likely, without Confederate support the Brits & French lost the First World War.

A victorious Imperial Germany would have no particular problem with African chattel slavery:

"Like other colonial powers, the Germans expanded their empire in the Africa Great Lakes region, ostensibly to fight slavery and the slave trade.
Unlike other imperial powers, however, they never formally abolished either, preferring instead to curtail the production of new "recruits" and regulate the existing slaving business.[3]"

[BroJoeK]

Trumpet 1: "The southern states were doing economic war against the slaves."

Slavers themselves didn't think so.
They believed & said they were doing their slaves a huge service by providing employment & security from cradle to grave and that indeed, their slaves were, overall, better off than Northern "wage slaves", industrial workers.

Very important to remember that by 1860 most Southerners had changed from seeing slavery as a "necessary evil" which should be restricted & abolished, to believing slavery was a positive moral good which should be encouraged & expanded wherever possible.

Trumpet 1: "The northern states were waging economic war against the southern states."

Nonsense.
Northern big-cities like New York were in partnership with their Southern planter brethren -- economic partnership, political alliance and social union.
Big cities supported the slave-power in Congress, and provided them whatever economic services asked for.
When the issue of secession came up, many of the largest Southern planters voted "no".
They did not feel "oppressed" by Northerners.

Trumpet 1: " When the southern states tried to leave, the Union states chased after them and sent them back to the Union Order."

Nonsense.
The Union did nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- to stop Deep South states from seceding and forming their new Confederacy.
Violence only erupted when Confederates attacked Union officials & seized Union properties.
Serious warfare did not begin until months after Confederates began seizing Union properties, threatening Union officials, firing on Union ships, declaring war and attacking Union troops in Union states.

So nobody had to chase down Confederates, they were already spoiling for a fight.

[BroJoeK]

Carry me back: "People like D’Souza want to have it both ways.
His knowledge of American history is lacking greatly.
Lincoln was a big govt leftist."

No more so than, for examples, Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump today.
But all had the amazing power to drive Democrats berserk and in 1861 that meant Democrats declared secession.
Today they merely froth at the mouth while ginning up a fantasy planet of fake news.

But Democrats are always Democrats and a good Republican, like Lincoln or Trump will always drive them stark-raving insane.

Carry me back: " Lincoln was fighting for the govt to give money to big business.
He was not a right winger.
He, if anything close to the right would be a rino"

Complete nonsense, since Lincoln helped define what the word "Republican" means, and it's not what you claim.

From the time of President Washington until President Trump today, conservative Federalist-Whig-Republican policy has been to encourage US manufacturing & exports, often through protective tariffs.
But Lincoln was never "fighting for the govt to give money to big business", that's absurd.
Instead, Lincoln was fighting first to preserve the Union and second to free the slaves, just as you should have learned in school.

Carry me back: "The Trump right should not want the country to be like Lincoln wanted it."

So far Trump has proved to be the ultimate Republican, in the mold of Lincoln & Reagan.
The fact that both Trump and Lincoln drove Democrats into paroxysms of lunacy only proves their genuineness as Republicans.

=

[Bonemaker]

Very interesting and thought provoking. However, to me the overarching question is whether it was worth 600-700,000 lives and the physical destruction of the South to preserve a political abstraction. Slavery would have died a natural death with the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

[BroJoeK]

Yollopoliuhqui: "Yah, well, the GOP’s abandonment of its Lincolnsonian heritage is exactly what bought it its current constant smackdowns regarding racism, media, academia, youth culture and social media."

Nah, the GOP abandoned none of its "Linconsonian" heritage, much as our FR Dixiecrats might wish otherwise.
But as always, it's the Democrats who've gone insane with mindless blathering about "racism," "sexism", "homophobia", "Islamophobia", etc.

Yollopoliuhqui: " Once the GOP rids itself of its Wall St. bankster closet Nazis, we’ll have a chance, but for now, we’re fighting on our heels in the larger cultural conflict"

"Wall St. bankster closet Nazis" sounds to me like more Democrat lunacy.
Wall Street today, as in 1860, is/was closely allied with Democrat interests.

Republican base has always been more rural, small towns, smaller business, traditional values, independent workers, suburban & for strong military but less foreign interventions.
So sometimes your "Wall St. bankster closet Nazis" do find common cause with us, but more often they prefer Democrats.

Yollopoliuhqui: "Had there been no Trump, we would have been toast within 2 years."

Right, Trump the traditional values Republican in the mold of Lincoln and Reagan.

[BroJoeK]

SeekAndFind: "As for Slavery ... it was a dying institution anyway and would go the way it did with the South American and Caribbean countries, albeit, it would have taken longer to die out in the South."

No, in 1860 slavery was prospering as never before and average slave prices the highest ever.
That's what gave Confederates confidence to build their new country specifically on slavery.

And nothing short of an existential crisis was ever going to change that.
What sort of crisis?
Well, if Europeans dictated that Confederates could no longer export slave-produced cotton & tobacco, that would make a huge crisis.

But the chances of it happening anytime in the 19th or 20th centuries are slim to none, especially if Imperial Germany had won the First World War.

[BroJoeK]

Mollypitcher1: "Lincoln did not want to risk losing the South’s Tariffs.
He didn’t give a damn about the slaves."

So our Lost Causers here keep posting, but the truth is different.

Yes, 1860 cotton exports were important (~$200 million of the US $4.4 billion GDP), but Southerners paid only a tiny fraction of total import tariffs.
And the new Morrill Tariff policy was intended to reduce imports as much as possible while encouraging domestic US manufacturing.
So Lincoln was less concerned about Southern tariffs than he was about the things he spoke of: first preserving the Union and second freeing slaves.

On your second point: Lincoln was born into an abolitionist family who left slave-state Kentucky for Indiana and Illinois at least in part to escape the effects of slavery.
While Lincoln lived & worked in Illinois the rate of increase in Illinois' freed-black population was higher than any other state of the Union.
And this despite laws Lincoln opposed, laws intended to restrict freed-black immigration to Illinois.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "What I wrote is supportable by the available evidence."

DoodleDawg: "By your interpretation of it perhaps.
Many other people look at the same evidence and say, "How the heck did he come to that conclusion?""

DiogenesLamp: "There is an easy answer for that, and Upton Sinclair articulated a similar concept nearly a hundred years ago.

‘It is difficult to get a man [like DiogenesLamp] to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’

"In this case, it is an invested emotional interest in the outcome, and it blinds people [like DiogenesLamp] to seeing any other possible explanation of what happened."

I've often noted how DiogenesLamp never posts anything that's really true, but it seems that in this particular case he almost... almost spoke the truth about himself -- only while claiming it for "other people".

[OIFVeteran]

Your assessment, though inelegant, is spot on. He was a dough faced democrat who may have had a homosexual relationship with a southern senator. He is, in my opinion, the worst president we ever had.

[OIFVeteran]

I think your being overly optimistic. Slaves were being used in the Tredgar iron works in Virginia and other factories in the south. Many slaves were used in other occupations than cotton farming. And a good cotton machine wasn’t created until the 1950s. I think it’s very probable that slavery would have lasted well into the 20th century if not for the civil war.

And remember, only one side eventually adopted freedom for the black race, so only 300,000 of those casualties were on the side of freedom. And I think that is a small price to pay to end slavery 50-100 years earlier that it would have.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "The Emancipation Executive Order went over like a fart in church.
They made to make conscripts of the Yankee soldiers BECAUSE THEY HAD TO AFTER THAT."

Not so fast, pilgrim, there's more to this story:

"There was no general military draft in America until the Civil War.
The Confederacy passed its first of 3 conscription acts 16 April 1862, and scarcely a year later the Union began conscripting men"

So, Confederates began drafting nearly a year before the Union.

"In April 1862,[13] the Confederacy passed the first conscription law in either C.S. or U.S. history, the Conscription Act,[14] which made all able bodied white men between the ages of 18 and 35 liable for a three-year term of service in the PACS."

"Although most of the soldiers who fought in the American Civil War were volunteers, both sides by 1862 resorted to conscription, primarily as a means to force men to register and to volunteer.
In the absence of exact records, estimates of the percentage of Confederate soldiers who were draftees are about double the 6 percent of United States soldiers who were conscripts.[5] "

So Confederates drafted twice the percentage as the Union.

"A cartoon from the war, showing the Confederates forcibly drafting a Unionist man into the Confederate army.
The Unionist man objects, with the Confederates threatening to lynch him if he does not comply."

So huge numbers in Confederate states were loyal Unionists.