How to Think About Lincoln

For his birthday, the succinct wisdom of Frederick Douglass is the best guide

It is possible that there have been more books written about Lincoln than any other political figure in all of history. I once found reference to the title, Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Caterpillar Tractor. This is not as fanciful as it may seem however; see Lincoln’s thoughtful 1858 “Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions.”

With this surfeit of Lincoln literature it is easy to be overwhelmed. Separately I am finishing a long essay about “What Makes a Good Biography?”, and I’ll note some good and bad Lincoln biographies as examples. But for the observance of his birthday today, the best short account of Lincoln for our time is Frederick Douglass’s 1876 “Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln.” The speech was delivered at the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Washington DC.

It is a long speech—nearly 5,000 words—but it conveys better than most biographies Lincoln’s profound statesmanship and prudence. It also reflects Douglass’s own personal story arc, which saw him evolve, from his status as an escaped slave with an understandably bitter regard for the Constitution that protected slavery in the South, to a champion of the Constitution as a charter of freedom, but whose vindication required Lincoln’s statesmanship as well as the struggle of the Civil War. Curious readers may wish to take in the whole thing

I wish to draw attention to just two important sections, one from near the beginning, and one from closer to the end.

The first:

He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave states. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to you, my white fellow-citizens, a pre-eminence in this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his step-children; children by adoption, children by forces of circumstances and necessity.

This sounds almost like something you might hear today at a Black Lives Matter meeting. And for decades the radical racial left has charged that Lincoln was a racist, deserving no respect or praise from any black person. But let’s continue with Douglass’s immediate sequel paragraph:

Fellow-citizens, ours is no new-born zeal and devotion — merely a thing of this moment. The name of Abraham Lincoln was near and dear to our hearts in the darkest and most perilous hours of the Republic. We were no more ashamed of him when shrouded in clouds of darkness, of doubt, and defeat than when we saw him crowned with victory, honor, and glory. Our faith in him was often taxed and strained to the uttermost, but it never failed. When he tarried long in the mountain; when he strangely told us that we were the cause of the war; when he still more strangely told us that we were to leave the land in which we were born; when he refused to employ our arms in defense of the Union; when, after accepting our services as colored soldiers, he refused to retaliate our murder and torture as colored prisoners; when he told us he would save the Union if he could with slavery; when he revoked the Proclamation of Emancipation of General Fremont; when he refused to remove the popular commander of the Army of the Potomac, in the days of its inaction and defeat, who was more zealous in his efforts to protect slavery than to suppress rebellion; when we saw all this, and more, we were at times grieved, stunned, and greatly bewildered; but our hearts believed while they ached and bled. Nor was this, even at that time, a blind and unreasoning superstition. Despite the mist and haze that surrounded him; despite the tumult, the hurry, and confusion of the hour, we were able to take a comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln, and to make reasonable allowance for the circumstances of his position. We saw him, measured him, and estimated him; not by stray utterances to injudicious and tedious delegations, who often tried his patience; not by isolated facts torn from their connection; not by any partial and imperfect glimpses, caught at inopportune moments; but by a broad survey, in the light of the stern logic of great events, and in view of that divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will, we came to the conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption had somehow met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. It mattered little to us what language he might employ on special occasions; it mattered little to us, when we fully knew him, whether he was swift or slow in his movements; it was enough for us that Abraham Lincoln was at the head of a great movement, and was in living and earnest sympathy with that movement, which, in the nature of things, must go on until slavery should be utterly and forever abolished in the United States.

The key phrase is near the middle: “we were able to take a comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln, and to make reasonable allowances for the circumstances of his position.” It is astounding how few biographers, historians, or political scientists have the capacity to “take a comprehensive view” of Lincoln or many other historic figures. To be able to “take a comprehensive view” of any figure requires the kind of study and instruction that most universities no longer provide to students of politics or history.

After carrying the story forward, Douglass lands on this summation of Lincoln’s statesmanship and how it should be understood:

I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.

Here we see the rebuke of the absolutism of what today we’d call the “single-issue voter,” and the proper estimation of moderation rightly understood—that is, not some wishy-washy mean in the middle, but the application of prudence as Aristotle understood it.

But do read the whole thing if you have time.

Freedmen’s Monument, Washington DC