Transcript 03 Lincoln & Stephens (4/10)

“And the War Came.”
Lincoln & Stephens
“With malice toward none; with charity for all;
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we
are in.”
(Political Science 110EB)
Alexander H. Stephens
• 1812-1883
• Congressional Representative
from Georgia before Civil War,
after reconstruction
• Vice President of the
Confederate States of America
• Governor of Georgia 1882-83
• Initially opposed secession
• “Cornerstone Speech”: March 21,
1861, Savannah, GA
– Just after Lincoln’s inauguration
2
Cornerstone Speech
• Confederate constitution “amply secures all our ancient
rights, franchises, and liberties. All the great principles of
Magna Charta are retained in it. No citizen is deprived of
life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers
under the laws of the land.”
– But “Some changes have been made.”
• “Allow me briefly to allude to some of these
improvements.”
– No taxes or tariffs to favor one industry or another
• Nullification crisis
– No redistribution of funds or resources between states by
central gov’t
– Presidency a single, 6 year term
3
Cornerstone Speech
•
“The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating
questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it
exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of
civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and
present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as
the ‘rock upon which the old Union would split.’ He was right.
– The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading
statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were
that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of
nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically.
• It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general
opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the
order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass
away.”
4
Cornerstone Speech
• “This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was
the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true,
secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it
should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged
against the constitutional guarantees thus secured,
because of the common sentiment of the day.
– Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested
upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error.
• Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite
idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon
the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white
man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race —
is his natural and normal condition.” [Applause.]
5
Cornerstone Speech
• “This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world,
based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This
truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other
truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even
amongst us.
– Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not
generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past
generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the
North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we
justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of
the mind — from a defect in reasoning.”
• “If we are true to ourselves, true to our cause, true to our destiny,
true to our high mission, in presenting to the world the highest type
of civilization ever exhibited by man — there will be found in our
lexicon no such word as fail.”
6
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.”
7
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
8
Gettysburg
• July 1-3, 1863
– 23,000 Union and 28,000 Confederate casualties
– 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)
9
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
10
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
11
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
12
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.
13
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
14
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.
15
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
16
Second Inaugural
• Powerlessness of human
effort
• Spiritual equality 
political humility,
forgiveness
• Moral preconditions for
democracy
• Spiritual unity of the US
• Critical position on self,
politics, the war
• March 4, 1865
17
Second Inaugural
• 4 years before, there was cause for extended remark.
“Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public
declarations have been constantly called forth on every
point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the
nation, little that is new could be presented.”
– The binding power of history over the present
• “The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly
depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it
is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all.
With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it
is ventured.”
– The present is uncertain, the future utterly opaque
• The limits on human action
18
Second Inaugural
• “On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago,
all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending
civil war. All dreaded it—all sought to avert it. While
the inaugural address was being delivered from this
place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without
war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to
destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union,
and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties
deprecated war; but one of them would make war
rather than let the nation survive; and the other would
accept war rather than let it perish. And the war
came.”
19
Second Inaugural
• ‘All’ or ‘both’ said four times: emphasis on
fundamental national unity
• Passive voice: ‘While the inaugural address
was being delivered’
• War emphasized, it is inevitable: ‘war’ said 7
times (9 if you count ‘it’)
20
Second Inaugural
• ‘And the war came.’
– abolitionist Wendell Phillips, January 8, 1852:
“Revolutions are not made; they come. A
revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It
comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far
back.”
– But for Lincoln there is nothing natural here. It
comes like lightning out of the sky.
21
Second Inaugural
• “All knew that this [slave] interest was, somehow, the cause
of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this
interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend
the Union; while the government claimed no right to do
more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.”
– Slavery the war’s cause
– South more responsible
• But the plans of all have failed:
– “Neither party expected for the war the magnitude, or the
duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that
the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the
conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph,
and a result less fundamental and astounding.”
22
Second Inaugural
• Neither/neither/each: the sections are joined
in their failure
• Lincoln includes himself in this failure: his
plans have had results that he never predicted
• The results are ‘fundamental’, astounding.
The US has been transformed.
– Though he led, he was not in control any more
than anyone else
23
Second Inaugural
• “Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and
each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange
that any men should dare ask a just God’s assistance in
wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces,
but let us judge not that we not be judged”
– Shift to the present, here and now
– Again, emphasis on unity
• Genesis 3:23 “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou
taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
– The curse of God for disobedience
– Slaveowners disobey God’s will
24
Second Inaugural
• Matthew 7:1 “Judge not, that ye be not
judged”
– From Sermon on the Mount
– Suggests both the mercy and judgment of God
– While the South bears more responsibility, the
North is not without flaw. Universality of sin
means that a people should always first criticize
themselves.
• Equality and forgiveness
25
Second Inaugural
• “The prayers of both could not be answered;
that of neither has been answered fully. The
Almighty has his own purposes.”
•
•
•
•
God the major actor in the drama of the war
Both sides could not win
Neither side has truly gotten what it wanted
God’s will over all history, distinct from human plans
and desires
– Humans rendered equal in this way
26
Second Inaugural
• ‘Woe unto the world because of offences! for
it must needs be that offences come; but woe
to that man by whom the offence cometh!’
– Matt. 18:7
• God’s will controls history, nothing can go
against the will of God.
– Yet individuals remain responsible for their sins
27
Second Inaugural
• “If we shall suppose that American Slavery is
once of those offences which, in the Providence
of God, must needs come, but which having
continued through His appointed time, He now
wills to remove, and that He gives to both North
and South this terrible war, as the woe due those
by whom the offense came, shall we discern
therein any departure from those divine
attributes which the believers in a Living God
always ascribe to Him?”
28
Second Inaugural
• “American” Slavery was
– An offence to God
– Allowed by God
– Willed by God to end now
• North and South equally guilty before God,
though not before humans
– Divine justice vs. human justice
– Perfection a dichotomous variable
29
Second Inaugural
• “Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.”
– Humans can do nothing to alter God’s will. They must humble
themselves and pray that God’s mercy is greater than his justice
– Distilling moral & religious meaning from the bewildering events
and destruction of the War
• Shared moral community of Americans
– Both guilty in their shared failure to uphold equality
– Both powerless to resist the will of God
• Transcendence of God
– Not some tribal deity
– His justice and purposes are very much different from those of
humans.
30
Second Inaugural
• “Yet if God wills that it continue until all the
wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred
and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk,
and until every drop of blood drawn with the
lash shall be paid by another drawn with the
sword, as was said three thousand years ago,
so still must it be said ‘the judgments of the
Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’”
31
Second Inaugural
• The US is guilty enough to deserve destruction
– Slavery a mortal transgression against American
obligation to equality
– Affirms the perfection of divine justice over human
claims to justice
– Though the justice of God is inscrutable, it is
nonetheless perfectly just
• “three thousand years ago”: these ideas predate
the US, & may outlast them by as much
• Just as the war is not the product of human
agency, neither will be its end
32
Second Inaugural
• The judgments of the Lord
– Psalm 19
– Lincoln must somehow act ethically
• within a context beyond his comprehension
• with outcomes that are impossible to firmly predict
• and be judged by the inscrutable mind of God
according to standards that he cannot fully understand
•  humility as political good
33
Second Inaugural
• “With malice toward none; with charity for all;
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to
see the right, let us strive on to finish the work
we are in”
– Forgiveness motivated by recognition of moral
equality
– Act firmly in the right, as God gives us to see it
• Moral conviction & moral humility
34
Second Inaugural
• “to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his
orphan—to do all which may achieve a just and a
lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
– Atonement between North & South
– Atonement between America & its God
– Political humility: don’t strive for utopia, strive for a better
world
– Equality demonstrated in a commitment to alleviated
suffering
– Care for widows & orphans a condition of minimal justice
in the Bible
35
Second Inaugural
• March 15, 1865
• “Men are not flattered by being shown that there has
been a difference of purpose between the Almighty
and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny
that there is a God governing the world.”
– If God is always on your side, is he really there?
• “It is a truth which I thought needed to be told; and as
whatever there is of humiliation there is in it, falls most
directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me
to tell it.”
– Why does the humiliation fall most directly on him?
36
37
Long-term outcomes
of the Civil War
• Federal government decisively rendered
superior to state governments
• Blacks being citizens, racial equality becomes
civil rights issue
• Necessities of war lead to dramatic expansion,
bureaucratization of federal gov’t
• Push to homogenize law across states
• Expanded power of corporations, closer ties to
government
38