Transcript 19 Abraham Lincoln (11/12)

Equality
• Equality highest political good of the Union:
– In letter to Lincoln, friend quotes Proverbs 25:11: “A
word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of
silver.
• Lincoln’s response:
– “The expression of that principle [that all men are created
equal] in our Declaration of Independence was the word
‘fitly spoken’ which has proved an ‘apple of gold’ to us.
The Union and the Constitution are the picture of silver
subsequently framed around it. The picture was made not
to adorn or destroy the apple; but to adorn and preserve
it. The picture was made for the apple, not the apple for
the picture. So let us act, that neither picture nor apple
shall ever be blurred, bruised or broken.”
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Secession
• Nov. 6, 1860: Lincoln elected
• December 20, 1860: South Carolina secedes
– By February 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas join it to form the
Confederacy, later joined by Virginia, Arkansas,
North Carolina, and Tennessee
• March 4, 1861: Lincoln inaugurated
• April 12, 1861: South attacks & takes Fort
Sumter, war begins
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Speech at Independence Hall
• “All the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so
far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments
which originated and were given to the world from this
hall. I have never had a feeling politically that did not
spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration
of Independence.
– I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by
the men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that
Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils
that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who
achieved that Independence.
• I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea
it was that kept this Confederacy so long together.”
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Union, Ideology, and Equality
• “It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from
the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of
Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this
country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time.
– It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be
lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is the sentiment embodied in
that Declaration of Independence.
• Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it
can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I
can help to save it.
– If it can't be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But, if this
country cannot be saved without giving up that principle---I was about
to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender
it.”
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No need of Bloodshed and War
• “Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there
is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity
for it.
– I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in
advance, there will be no blood shed unless it be forced
upon the Government. The Government will not use force
unless force is used against it. My friends, this is a wholly
unprepared speech. I did not expect to be called upon to
say a word when I came here---I supposed I was merely to
do something towards raising a flag.
• I may, therefore, have said something indiscreet, but I
have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and,
in the pleasure of Almighty God, die by.”
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First Inaugural
• Major themes: Secession is bad because it
– Breaks contract
– Violates the nation
– Is anti-democratic
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First Inaugural
• Contract & Covenant:
– ““All profess to be content in the Union, if all
constitutional rights be maintained”
– No one can name “a single instance in which a
plainly written provision of the Constitution has
ever been denied.”
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First Inaugural
• Contract & Covenant:
– Even if the Constitution were only a contract (it’s
not), one party cannot unilaterally exit a contract
– The question is one of definitive interpretation:
• “May Congress prohibit slavery in the territories? The
Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress
protect slavery in the territories? The Constitution
does not expressly say.”
– Power over the meaning of the law
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First Inaugural
• Likewise, the Constitution is silent on “the
only substantial dispute” facing the country;
that “One section of the country believes
slavery is right, and ought to be extended,
while the other believes that it is wrong, and
ought not be extended.”
– How is this dispute to be resolved?
– The black letter of the law can’t fix this, it is a
matter of persuasion & argument (politics)
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First Inaugural
• But the Union is not a contract, it is a single,
national people
• “The Union is much older than the Constitution…
finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for
ordaining and establishing the Constitution, was
‘to form a more perfect union.’
• But if the destruction of the Union, by one, or by a
part only, of the States, be lawfully possible, the Union
is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost
the vital element of perpetuity.”
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First Inaugural
• Secession anti-democratic
• “Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a
minority, as a permanent arrangement, is
wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the
majority principle, anarchy, or despotism in
some form, is all that is left.”
– The choices are between despotism, democracy,
or anarchy
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First Inaugural
• The Union is bound by a shared history and belief
• “I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but
friends. We must not be enemies. Though
passion may have strained, it must not break our
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory,
streching from every battle-field, and patriot
grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all
over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of
the Union, when again touched, as surely they
will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
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Antietam
• Sep. 17, 1862
– 23,000 casualties in a single day
– Bloodiest day in American history
– Lee driven out of Northern-controlled territories,
escapes back into Virginia
• A few days later, according to diary of Sec. of
Treasury Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln told assembled
cabinet: “I said nothing to any one; but I made
the promise to myself, and [hesitating a little]—to
my Maker. The rebel army is now driven out, and
I am going to fulfill that promise.”
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Emancipation
• Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy: Lincoln made “a vow,
a covenant, that if God gave us the victory in the
approaching battle, he would consider it an indication of
the divine will and that it was his duty to move forward in
the cause of emancipation.
– It might be thought strange that he had in this way submitted
the disposal of matters when the way was not clear to his mind
what he should do. God had decided this question in favor of
the slaves. He was satisfied that it was right, was confirmed and
strengthened in this action by the vow and the results.”
• The war now aimed toward abolition of slavery, the Union
cannot be truly restored while slavery exists
– Emancipation Proclamation: Jan. 1, 1863 (a military order)
– Thirteenth Amendment adopted Dec. 6, 1865
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Gettysburg
• July 1-3, 1863
– 23,000 Union and 28,000 Confederate casualties
• Total American casualties in Iraq: ~4500; Afghanistan: ~2200
– about one quarter of the Northern and one third of the Southern
forces fielded
• July 3: Pickett’s Charge
– Confederate advance of 12,500 men across three-quarter mile of open
space, facing concerted artillery and rifle fire
• More than half killed, wounded or captured.
• Making sense of the carnage: a national narrative
– The project of Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg is one of interpreting and
revising the American polity’s self-understanding, in fitting with the
priestly concern for the codification of belief. In it, he looks not only to
embed the carnage of the war within a greater narrative, making it
comprehensible and thus meaningful, but also to decisively reject
slavery as being outside the bounds of orthodox American life. (119120)
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Gettysburg Address
• Main Themes:
– America is a nation founded in
and directed toward equality
– Americans can succeed or fail in
this charge
– The Union is the definitive test
case for democracy
– Redemptive potential of the
current crisis
– Central metaphors of birth,
death, and rebirth
– Giving the war meaning by
embedding it w/in greater
narrative
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The Gettysburg Address
• “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought
forth upon this continent a new Nation, conceived in
Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created equal.”
– Biblical dating
– use of the plural possessive pronoun “our” in reference to
the fathers is suggestive, as the Israelites used the same
language to refer to their forebears, and especially to the
prophets .
– depicts Americans as being a single people descended
from common ancestors, who are in turn themselves
dedicated to something higher.
• I.e. the proposition that all men are created equal
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Gettysburg Address
• Presented not as a new tenet of American belief, but as being in
continuity with original ideals of American politics. The shared
heritage of the American people is to pursue the charge of their
fathers
– Affirming orthodox American belief
• a single Nation, not various States
– Nation born in the Declaration, which predates the Constitution or any
other arrangement between states
• The pursuit of political equality for Lincoln is the essence of the
American polity, and serves as the common heritage and identity of
the American people.
– Americans are for Lincoln united by shared belief, and the nation is a
lineage defined by that belief in the place of blood, or rather, that faith
is its blood. The fathers are the fathers only insofar as the children
embrace the central idea that all men are created equal
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Gettysburg Address
• “Now we are engaged in a great civil war,
testing whether that Nation or any Nation so
conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”
– A test or ordeal
– A definitive test case that will reveal finally
whether democratic order can resist localist
anarchy, and whether republican equality can
overcome the aristocratic domination found in
slavery.
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Gettysburg Address
• “We are met,” he says, “on a great battle-field of that war. We are
met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those
who here gave their lives so that the nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we do this.”
– Conception, birth, death, redemption
– Gave their lives
• “But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate,
we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men living and dead who
struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add
or subtract.”
– The ground is sanctified by the martyrdom of soldiers
• “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here.”
– Humility
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Gettysburg Address
• It is for us, the living, rather to be rededicated to
the unfinished work that they have so far so
nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here
dedicated to the great task remaining before us,
that from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they here gave
the last full measure of devotion;
– that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not
have died in vain—that this nation shall, under God,
have a new birth of freedom—and that government of
the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
perish from the earth.
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Gettysburg Address
• A renewal of dedication and surpassing “the fathers,” completing the work
that they began
• Human agency
– Conception, birth, death, sacrifice, rebirth
– This rebirth enables the living to draw increased devotion even as the dead
gave the last of theirs; the living must go beyond what was given by the fallen,
as the task remaining is one which only they can complete
• Under God
– Equality before God
• “Perish from the earth”
– Jeremiah 10
• By the time of his speech at Gettysburg Lincoln has come to define and
affirm the nation by its dedication to the ideal of equality, by definition
depicting the defenders of slavery as being alien to the American polity
and opposed to its world-historical mission
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