Summer History & Heritage — #9 (week of August 8)
Students & friends, we continue our look at the Almanac biographical sketches with
some commentary on Abraham Lincoln. Keep in mind that we are now observing, or
supposed to be observing, the sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) of the great war of
1861-1865, still the watershed event in our history.
August 2 — Ironies of the Lincoln Legacy
Could it be said, as the author suggested, that Lincoln, in order to save democracy and
the political self-determination of peoples, struck a blow to both (at least as they existed
in the American South)? One might also say the same about Lincolnʼs handling of the
U.S. Constitution. He appeared to skirt its requirements on several occasions, always
citing war necessities and always intending the salvation of that venerable document.
For example, Lincoln as commander-in-chief launched a military invasion of seceded
states (a new independent confederation?) without Congressional approval. He acted
unilaterally to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, incarcerated hundreds of war critics
without trial, and shut down opposition newspapers and journals. (Just wondering how
George W. would have fared had he tried something like that.) The question this raises
for us, and itʼs highly debatable, is about means and ends. Assuming for now that the
ends were legitimate, were the means appropriate and just?
Mastersʼ Lincoln — (based on Clyde Wilsonʼs April 2011 article in Chronicles)
Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950), the Illinois poet and author of the Spoon River
Anthology (1915), penned a biography of the iconic 16th-President entitled Lincoln: The
Man (1931). In it he took a dim view of his fellow Illinoisan, even of his soaring political
rhetoric in speeches like The Gettysburg Address (1863). Mastersʼ view is a minority
report to be sure, especially in the North, but there have always been some potent
voices critical of Lincoln — of his character, his policies, and his vision of America — even
north of the Mason-Dixon line. For the most part the critics have been summarily
dismissed by the gatekeepers of respectable opinion in this country, and Masters was
probably the harshest of those critics (and perhaps an embittered one as well).
Whatever the merits or demerits of his biography, his critique of the Gettysburg Address
in that book is worth pondering. Masters believed that Lincoln, in that speech, “carefully
avoided one half of the American story” and proved “unable to deal realistically with the
history of his country.” Thus, the oration “remains a prose poem, but in the inferior
sense that one must not inquire into its truth. One must read it apart from the facts. . .”
What Lincoln really gave us at Gettysburg, said Masters, was “that refusal of the truth
which is written all over the American character and its expressions.”
Thatʼs a “hard saying,” maybe even an offensive one, and it cries out for some
explanation. What in the world is the poet talking about?
Leaving aside the fact that no “new nation,” including one “conceived in liberty” and
inspired by a great “proposition,” was forged in 1776, the speech and the political career
of Lincoln reveal that rock of the republic, as he understood it, consisted in the equal
rights of individuals and the democratic expression of such rights in sacred (and mass)
political entities like The People, The Nation, or The Union. Itʼs not that we canʼt find
such themes in early American political thought, but it seems dangerously reductionistic
to stress them at the expense of everything else. Above all, at the expense of the actual
history of America up to the Civil War.
What about the chartered colonies and their almost seamless transition to states with
their own constitutions and representative bodies? What about local and regional
customs? Communal authority? The various structures of society (beginning with the
family) that mediate relations between citizens and their governments? What about the
Christian religion and its scriptural authority?
These were, and in a gravely weakened state still are, American realities. Historically,
theyʼve served to define, temper, moderate, and in some cases, counterbalance those
broader, more abstract political themes mentioned above.
Lincolnʼs worldview, however, takes little account of such things. His rhetoric is
unquestionably brilliant, but he gives his generation, as Masters says, a half-portrait of
America, and itʼs not the better or stronger half.
This school of thought, then, sees Lincoln, not as savior of the old Union and the old
liberty, but as father and founder of new ones. (Did he not speak of “a new birth of
freedom” at Gettysburg?) It should come as no surprise, however, that succeeding
years have shown that neither the rights of individuals nor the jurisdiction of the nationstate have effectual bounds any longer.
As many of you know, this teacher often finds the case put forth by Lincolnʼs critics
persuasive. The mainstream view, however, says Abe saved the Union, freed the
slaves, and remains Americaʼs greatest spokesman for liberty, virtue, and prosperity.
(Our fine textbook author for the coming school year, William Bennett, sides with the
mainstream; his America volumes are subtitled “The Last Best Hope,” a descriptive
phrase he took from Lincoln.)
