Abraham Lincoln's Cincinnati Speech Endorsed Immigration

Abraham Lincoln

On February 12, 1861, Abraham Lincoln told a group of German immigrants in Cincinnati that:

“While man [sic] exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.”

My simple thesis today is that Lincoln, the Republican Party’s first president, not only supported immigration, but regarded immigrants with goodwill, equality, and compassion.

Lincoln supported immigration in this brief speech in Cincinnati, Ohio. He stated that immigrants equaled everyone else in merit. That Lincoln’s welcoming position aroused controversy in 1861, just as it does today, should surprise no one. In the wry, chatty style at which he excelled, Lincoln assured the crowd that they, as immigrants, equaled everyone else:

“In regard to Germans and foreigners, I esteem foreigners no better than other people, nor any worse. [Laughter and cheers.] They are all of the great family of men, and if there is one shackle upon any of them, it would be far better to lift the load from them than to pile additional loads upon them. [Cheers.]” 

Lincoln continued that the United States had plenty of room to accommodate immigrants:

“And inasmuch as the continent of America is comparatively a new country, and the other countries of the world are old countries, there is more room here, comparatively speaking, than there is there; and if they can better their condition by leaving their old homes, there is nothing in my heart to forbid them coming; and I bid them all God speed. [Cheers.]”

Lincoln’s simple compassion, welcoming the immigrants to “better their condition by leaving their old homes,” represented the Republican Party’s sympathetic attitude.

We must clearly recall that immigrants in 1861 faced discrimination and prejudice just as they do today. As historian Laura Leddy Turner notes, “The German, Irish and Italian immigrants who arrived in America during the 1800s often faced prejudice and mistrust.” The same was true two generations later, when my Ukrainian grandparents and their offspring, including my mother, overcame discrimination in western Pennsylvania. Sadly, the same obstacles afflict Latina/Latino and Haitian immigrants today. Lincoln’s statement of equality did not merely represent political or economic wisdom; it demonstrated the compassion for which he and his political movement were becoming famous.

Trump and Vance Spread Lies about the Haitian Immigrants. But Here Is My Family's Story.

 
Yes, times have changed, but why should our values change? Lincoln had begun his speech, not with policy, but by stating a value: that we all share a duty to “assist in ameliorating” the suffering of others. Can today’s Republican Party emulate the wise attitudes and policies that its first great champion conveyed? As the Hebrew Scriptures assure us, there is nothing new under the sun, and prudent men and women can always learn from the past. When honorable people speak, judicious people listen!

Abraham Lincoln Raised the Flag: A Speech of Principle. A Speech for the Ages

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address: “The Better Angels of Our Nature” 

I do hope that all my fellow Americans celebrated a wonderful Independence Day yesterday. God bless the United States of America. May we always be free, and may our freedom always be tempered by justice.

by William D. Harpine

Copyright ©2026 by William D. Harpine

Image of Abraham Lincoln, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Lincoln’s Cooper Union Speech Turned the Tables on the Slavers

Abraham Lincoln

“What is the frame of government under which we live?”

Future President Abraham Lincoln asked that question during his speech of February 27, 1860, at New York City’s Cooper Union. Speaking like the skilled lawyer he was, Lincoln turned the tables against the slave states’ claim that they, and they alone, stood for the United States’ constitutional traditions. Thus, he skillfully used the conservatives’ own argument against them. Surprisingly, Lincoln presented himself as the true conservative in the slavery debate.

Slave owners had claimed that the federal government had no authority to restrict the spread of slavery to new territories. Lincoln, in contrast, wished to prevent the spread of slavery to new territories. In this speech, Lincoln used the historical record to show that tradition supported his view, not the slavers’ views. Sadly, even though Lincoln established that his opponents’ beliefs supported his position, not their own, the slavery dispute stubbornly resisted even Lincoln’s powerful logic.


Turning the Tables, Step #1

Beginning this magnificent speech, Lincoln insisted that he would speak from tradition:

“The facts with which I shall deal this e7vening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of them.”

Far from using the more radical abolitionists’ blood-curdling language, Lincoln emphasized the traditional: “old and familiar;” “nor is there anything new.”

Continuing, Lincoln endorsed the traditional perspective. He quoted the pro-slavery argument of his erstwhile political opponent, Illinois’ pro-slavery United States Senator Stephen Douglas:

“In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in ‘The New-York Times,’ Senator Douglas said:

“‘Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now.’”

Douglas had framed the argument as a return to the principles of “our fathers.” Lincoln pounced on Douglas’ view that “our fathers” understood the traditions better than anyone. This enabled Lincoln to turn Douglas’ argument against him:

“I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: ‘What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?’”

When turning the tables, the speaker accepts the opponent’s premise and uses it to prove the opposite conclusion. The argument’s power came from the fact that Douglas had handed Lincoln his argument. Lincoln did not say that tradition was wrong, nor did he say that we need to create new and progressive ideas. Instead, he co-opted Douglas' proud claim as “a text for this discourse.” Once he proved his point, neither Douglas nor any other advocate of slavery could refute Lincoln’s premise. After all, it was their own premise!

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address: “The Better Angels of Our Nature”

Turning the Tables, Step #2

Lincoln reframed the slavery debate by setting the debate as a dispute over what the tradition was rather than making an argument for change. Lincoln did not ask whether the founders of our Republic were wrong to endorse slavery. No! That would reject the constitutional tradition, which did accept slavery. Instead, Lincoln contended that southern secessionists misunderstood the traditions. That might sound tricky, but Lincoln cited the historical record. Mocking Douglas, Lincoln asked:

“What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers understood ‘just as well, and even better than we do now?’

“It is this: Does the proper division of local from federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government  to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?”

Thus, Lincoln sidestepped the question of states’ rights. For secessionists took their legal framework from the notion of states’ rights, as embodied in the 9th and 10th amendments to the United States Constitution. In contrast, Lincoln pointed that the Constitution did not provide for territorial rights. Making a close, lawyerly distinction, Lincoln reminded his audience that territorial rights were not states’ rights. If more states were admitted to the union, the principle of states’ rights might give them the legal privilege to choose whether they would, or would not, permit slavery. If they were merely territories, however, Lincoln assigned that right to Congress. Furthermore, as we shall see, he drew that conclusion from tradition—indeed, repeating Douglas’ exact words, “our fathers.”

Cooper Union, Foundation Building

Turning the Tables, Step #3

So, to demonstrate that the nation’s founders supported his view, while turning Douglas’ premise against him, Lincoln examined the historical record. Again, if one wants to be traditional, where could one turn, if not to history? Lincoln cited the historical fact that in 1784, before the Constitution was adopted, three men who would later serve in the Constitutional Convention voted to withhold slavery from the Northwest Territory. Lincoln also cited a 1789 law, the very first law passed under the new constitution, which prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory. The bill’s author was, in fact, Thomas Fitzsimmons, who had served in the Constitutional Convention. The bill was then passed into law with unanimous consent, in a Congress that, as Lincoln explained, included fully sixteen members of the Constitutional Convention.

Thus, Lincoln concluded from historical events that the very same people who wrote the Constitution felt were willing to prohibit slavery in a territory:

“This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the federal territory.”

Continuing, Lincoln cited the vote of Rufus King, who participated in the Constitutional Convention, to prohibit slavery in Missouri. Lincoln did acknowledge that Charles Pinckney voted against such a prohibition. Still, summing up several cases, Lincoln used the historical record to show that twenty-three of the thirty-nine participants in the Constitutional Convention had, at one time or another, voted to prohibit slavery in one territory or another. In a long, argumentative sentence, Lincoln was now ready to deride Douglas’ claim that the "fathers” of our Republic “understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now:”

“Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers ‘who framed the government under which we live,’ who have, upon their official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question which the text affirms they ‘understood just as well, and even better than we do now;’ and twenty-one of them—a clear majority of the whole ‘thirty-nine’ — so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross political impropriety and willful perjury, if, in their understanding, any proper division between local and federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories.”

Again, Lincoln quoted Douglas exact words: “understood just as well, and even better than we do now.” Having found that a slim, but real, majority of the Constitution’s framers explicitly supported his position, Lincoln concluded, with more than a little sarcasm:

“Thus the twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so actions, under such responsibility, speak still louder.”

By that point, Lincoln had taken the same premise that Douglas praised— to revere “our fathers— and turned it to his own purposes.   

Turning Tradition against the Traditionalists

Lincoln craftily avoided picturing himself as a reformer, a radical, or even a liberal. No, he spoke as the true traditionalist. Marshaling fact after fact from the historical record, argument after argument from tradition, Lincoln had cited, not only the Constitution’s text, but the actions of the men who wrote it: the “fathers” who Douglas had cited as the ultimate constitutional authorities.

Lincoln’s proposals were, by the standards of the time, moderate. He did not, in this particular speech, protest against slavery. He did not ask the slave states to free their slaves. Lincoln’s consistent argument during his run for the presidency, and, indeed, during the early years of his administration, was that slavery should not spread, while the existing institution should be left alone. He had earlier prophesied in his “House Divided” speech that the United States would eventually become either slave or free, but he had always held short of abolitionism. Unlike Frederick Douglass or William Lloyd Garrison, who opposed slavery in all forms, and who were, at the time, considered to be dangerous radicals, Lincoln stood in the middle.

One Searing Phrase: Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” Speech

Frederick Douglass’ 1852 Fourth of July Speech and the Christian Right 

Instead of sounding radical, Lincoln argued like an attorney proving his case in court, or a debater who crushed his opponents’ case with a deluge of facts. On the one hand, the Cooper Union speech may have contributed to Lincoln’s nomination by the Republican Party and his subsequent election to the presidency. Newspapers published the speech’s text, while the Republican Party distributed it in pamphlets and flyers. On the other hand, Lincoln's carefully reasoned arguments could never soothe white Southerners’ fears. Despite his many assurances that he would leave southern slavery alone, South Carolina shelled Fort Sumter barely six weeks after Lincoln took office in 1861.

Red Cloud's Cooper Union Speech

Indeed, although Lincoln utterly and masterfully turned the tables against the South’s philosophical and historical argument, his speech proved nothing so much as the sad fact that logic can fail to persuade people. Yes, Lincoln made a powerful argument that tradition upheld his legal position and proved that the facts contradicted Douglas’ argument from tradition. Unfortunately, by 1860, the United States had fractured beyond repair. Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech had pummeled the slavers’ philosophical and legal niceties into logical rubble. The nation lurched into the Civil War anyway.

“What is the frame of government under which we live?” Given the turmoil of the Trump years, I am not certain that we have answered that question, even today. 

by William D. Harpine 

____________


Research Note: Communication scholars Michael C. Leff and Gerald P. Mohrmann published a detailed analysis of Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech. Large libraries can probably find a copy for you. Their article, which is considered a masterpiece in the neo-Aristotelian theory of rhetoric, suggests that the speech was a major factor in Lincoln’s successful election.

Even more remarkably, in his book The Ethics of Rhetoric, conservative scholar Richard Weaver develops the surprising view that Abraham Lincoln was a true conservative. Weaver reasoned that, although Lincoln spoke for progressive ideas, he rested his arguments on fundamental definitions and moral attitudes. Anyone who wants to understand Lincoln in particular, or, more broadly, rhetoric’s ethical foundations, should study Weaver’s book. For that matter, anyone who wants to be a conservative should ignore Ayn Rand and the soulless politicians, and instead carefully ponder Weaver’s uplifting insights.

Historical Note: The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is a small but renowned university in lower Manhattan. Business magnate Peter Cooper provided a massive endowment that enables students to attend at either free or greatly discounted tuition. Lincoln was the most renowned of the many prominent speakers who have appeared in the famous Great Hall in the basement of Cooper Union’s Foundation Building. 

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Abraham Lincoln, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image of Cooper Union Foundation Building, Eden, Janine and Jim, Creative Commons License

American Presidents and the Rhetoric of Virtue

William McKinley

“We hope that all who are represented here may be moved to higher and nobler effort for their own and the world's good.”

– President William McKinley, Buffalo, New York, September 5, 1901

As the nation’s political and symbolic leaders, United States presidents have long encouraged public virtue. Until this week, that is, when virtue seems to get lost in the muck, as President Donald Trump posted a bizarre video that depicts him as a fighter pilot, wearing a royal crown, divebombing peaceful demonstrators with his own fecal matter.

Trump’s disgusting video, which his political movement has solidly supported, invites us to put aside the day’s horrors, the unspeakable disgrace, the indelible contempt that Trump has brought to our nation, and to remember that American presidents have regularly urged their fellow citizens to live virtuous lives, to follow the honorable course, and to do right by one another. For one of the President’s traditional roles is to bring out our best. And this is exactly what previous presidents have undertaken – over, over, and over. Until now. Let us not wallow in disgust and Trump’s infantile behavior. Let us, instead, remember uplifting rhetoric’s long tradition. Let us remember history’s finest lessons! We can begin with our first president.

McKinley's Last Speech: Inclusive, Rational, Persuasive

 

George Washington

George Washington immediately set his new nation’s moral tone. In his First Inaugural Address, he offered his fellow citizens principles of honor and moral behavior. Indeed, Washington took it for granted that, despite their policy disagreements, the opposing political movements would all forever agree on basic principles: honor, freedom, and justice. He further asserted that only good and moral people could enjoy free government and command the world’s admiration: 

“… the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world.”

The Father of Our Country continued:

“… there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.”

A population that forgets virtue has forsaken happiness! Words to ponder indeed. The Father of Our Country set the tone, and Abraham Lincoln, who was perhaps, our greatest president, continued it while facing the most trying circumstances.


Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Even during the trials of the American Civil War, a violent struggle like no other that our nation has experienced, the President of the United States urged reconciliation, forgiveness, and mutual respect.

Abraham Lincoln, who preserved the Union, was perhaps the most elegant speaker our nation has ever produced. And maybe the wisest. Let us consider the words that concluded his Second Inaugural Address in 1865. He gave that speech at the end of the Civil War, a time when grief, hatred, and bloody horror spread across the entire land, when few households had not lost a husband, son, or brother, and urged the warring parties to unite with forgiveness and kindness:

“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; 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 and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

“With malice toward none!” Not just victory, but “a just, and a lasting peace.”

Did the reunited nation fully live up to Lincoln’s plea? Of course not. A disgruntled Southerner soon shot Lincoln dead. As the years passed, the nation was wracked by the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, racial segregation, the myth of the Lost Cause, and the violent oppression of civil rights.

Abraham Lincoln and the Definition of “Liberty:” A Lesson for Our Time

Nevertheless, Lincoln urged the nation to do what was right, to live virtuously, and to overcome our differences. We would all – all of us – have been better off if we had lived by his rules. Lincoln tried, almost with his dying breath, to put the United States on the right path.


John F. Kennedy

John Kennedy was, in his own way, as eloquent as Lincoln. Like Washington and Lincoln, he encouraged patriotism and selflessness. In his Inaugural Address, Kennedy stated a model of virtue and citizenship that should inspire every American patriot:

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

Not only did he urge Americans to “ask what you can do for your country,” but, recognizing that national power brings moral obligations, Kennedy encouraged the entire world to work for freedom and justice:

“My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

(That, by the way, was my mother’s favorite passage from Kennedy’s great speech.) A decorated veteran of World War II, Kennedy knew that the United States led the free world and that other nations looked to us for an example.

John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address: A Call to Service


Ronald Reagan

John Kennedy was not the last president to express moral sentiments as the leader of the free world! Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly

Reagan at the UN

in New York City, Ronald Reagan reminded the assembled world leaders of the “fellowship of the human race.” He praised the human spirit:

“The responsibility of this assembly -- the peaceful resolution of disputes between peoples and nations -- can be discharged successfully only if we recognize the great common ground upon which we all stand: our fellowship as members of the human race, our oneness as inhabitants of this planet, our place as representatives of billions of our countrymen whose fondest hope remains the end to war and to the repression of the human spirit.”

Reagan perfectly well understood the traumas of human history, the injustices that people have wreaked upon one another. Nevertheless, he urged the United Nations to look past those horrors to create a better world:

“Yes, the deeds of infamy or injustice are all recorded, but what shines out from the pages of history is the daring of the dreamers and the deeds of the builders and the doers.”

Dreamers and builders and doers! Can we live by Reagan’s wisdom? That was in the old days, of course, when American leadership was unquestioned. 

The Lesson to Remember!

For the lesson that Reagan, and many other presidents, have taught is a lesson in rhetorical leadership.

Of course, I could go on. In his Second Inaugural Address, President William McKinley, a heartfelt conservative, told the nation to move past party loyalty: “There are some national questions in the solution of which patriotism should exclude partisanship.” Alas, McKinley’s simple lesson seems to have vanished in the mists. A century later, President Barack Obama reminded the United States that, “In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned.” 

Yes, greatness must indeed be earned. Boasting and bragging make no one great. Sadly, we now seem to live in an era in which people mock virtue. We now live in an era when the current President of the United States celebrates the vilest behavior imaginable. Now, yes, the reader might respond that not all presidents have been virtuous people. The reader might remark that the United States has not always done right. That’s not the point: we all have faults. The most important thing is that, recognizing their role as leaders, American presidents have consistently spoken to guide the nation onto a right path.

Leadership is not all about power, cruelty, and violence. The most powerful leadership is moral leadership. The most powerful leadership comes when we inspire ourselves and others to be our best, to strive for excellence, to live lives of compassion, justice, and, yes, virtue. The most powerful leadership is to guide people on the right path.

The most disturbing part of Donald Trump’s disgusting doggy-doo video is not just that he published it, for nothing that Trump does surprises me. No, the most disturbing part is that his leading supporters not only tolerate, but excuse and even celebrate Trump as he leads the United States into depravity. Yes, leaders can move us down, just as they can move us up.

Still, all is not lost. Our forebears still guide us. We can still act “with malice toward none.” We can still remember to “ask what you can do for your country.” High school history students across the country were taught those lessons. Our presidents’ wise speeches laid down our moral principles. Let us remember them. Let us try to live by them. For true conservativism comes from true traditions, and a proud line of American presidents have handed those traditions down to us. Let us live by them.

by William D. Harpine

Copyright 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of William McKinley, public domain, Library of Congress  

Image of Abraham Lincoln, public domain, Library of Congress

Image of Ronald Reagan, Public Domain, Ronald Reagan Library

Abraham Lincoln Raised the Flag: A Speech of Principle. A Speech for the Ages

Lincoln at Independence Hall

Liberty and justice for all. Those stirring words conclude the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Today, on Flag Day, June 14, 2025, some Americans celebrated by watching President Donald Trump’s massive military parade in Washington, DC, while others participated in thousands of No King demonstrations that protested Trump’s executive orders and aggressive anti-immigrant policies. Still, Abraham Lincoln, speaking off the cuff, gave the greatest of all speeches about the American Flag. He called the nation to unite on our founding principle: the principle of liberty. He spoke at Independence Hall in Philadelphia as the new flag, with a new star for just-admitted Kansas, made its formal first appearance. 

Let us, then, look into history, not to current events. to understand our conflicts and our hopes. In his speech about the American Flag, Lincoln urged the nation toward unity in the face of impending disaster. Can we learn his wise lesson? Or are we doomed to repeat bitter history? For, while facing an oncoming struggle, Lincoln resorted, not to the nuts and bolts of picayune policy discourse, but instead to the higher principle of liberty. In Lincoln’s speech, a higher principle bound the United States. That principle created the nation, and, Lincoln hoped, that principle would hold the nation together.

Liberty Bell, Independence Hall

Conflict, indeed, is nothing new. When Lincoln, who had just been elected president but not yet inaugurated, helped raise the United States Flag on February 22, 1861, he urged unity in the face of division. 

As the United States faces conflict and hostility today between opposing factions, we stand in a hard tradition. For, less than two months after the speech, the South Carolina militia attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, and the Civil War began. Before the war ended, more Americans would die than in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm added together.

In his speech, Lincoln stood, not on factions, but on historical principle:

“I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”

Indeed, reflecting on the United States’ long endurance as a united republic, Lincoln looked, not to the clutches of circumstance, but to a great moral principle: the principle of liberty:

“I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. 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.”

Liberty. Lincoln did not speak for the liberty of the fortunate, but for the liberty of all. Lincoln talked about how American liberty promised freedom and justice for everyone, for eternity. Noble words. Have we forgotten them?

“It was that which gave promise,” Lincoln asserted, that, in the passage of time, lift a great “weight,” not just from Americans, but also “from the shoulders of all.”

Lincoln again stressed the great principle of liberty. He emphasized that the Declaration of Independence, United States of America’s founding document, rested on principle, and that principle gave Lincoln hope:

“This is a sentiment embodied in the 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 cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful.”

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address: “The Better Angels of Our Nature”

One Searing Phrase: Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” Speech

Yes, history does show that the consequences turned out to be awful – beyond awful. All the same, Lincoln made that principle – the principle of liberty – his guiding light above all political decisions:

“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 surrender it.”

Consider the questions that Lincoln did not ask. Points of economic and political disagreement? How to improve the economy? Lincoln didn’t ask those questions. He asked no questions about political patrons, nor did he say an evil word against his opponents. His simple question was whether we could unite on the great principle of liberty. In fact, his greater question was whether all people throughout time could enjoy liberty. 

Do similar issues face us today? In Lincoln’s time, the southern states considered liberty to be a God-given right of White men, while Black men and women could be held in forced labor and cruel chattel bondage. Today, we are debating about the freedom and liberty of those who wish to immigrate to the land of the free, making their homes here. In 1861, southern leaders felt that freedom for slaves was just as absurd as a plan to make the moon stop rotating around the earth. In 2025, the very concept of freedom for immigrants strikes horror into the hearts of Trump and his supporters. So, have we really changed? Have we changed enough?

Lincoln was not our greatest president because he won a war or because he preserved the union. No, he was our greatest president because he reminded us, with wisdom and eloquence that no other leader could match, that the United States is a nation of principle. Let us never forget. Our guiding principle is neither liberalism nor conservativism, neither tradition or progress. No! That great principle, liberty, created our nation, and only liberty can preserve us.

 Liberty for everyone, liberty for all time. American liberty as a shining example to spread across the earth. A great principle. A great, idealistic, and stunningly ambitious theme. A theme so idealistic that we can hardly grasp it.

Abraham Lincoln was our greatest president. Let us never forget, however, that Abraham Lincoln was, by far, also our most contentious and divisive president. His election prompted a great civil war which, by the time it ended, had cost almost every family in the land a husband, brother, son, or dear one. Only by massive bloodshed was the horrifying injustice of slavery ended. Only after terrible bloodshed could the former slaves enjoy even any hope that they, too, might receive liberty and its blessings.  

In this great speech, Lincoln taught the only lesson we will ever need for Flag Day: Liberty and justice for all. 

by William D. Harpine

__________

Research Note: The great conservative rhetorical theorist Richard Weaver wrote brilliantly about Lincoln’s commitment to principle and enduring truths. In that sense, Weaver insists, Lincoln was a true conservative. Lincoln was a true conservative because, instead of dwelling on immediate circumstances, Lincoln always looked to the higher values. In this speech, Lincoln drew his values from the tradition of the Declaration of Independence. Weaver’s most important book, The Ethics of Rhetoric, should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the powers of speech.

Copyright © by William D. Harpine

Image: Photo by Frederick De Bourg Richards, public domain, Library of Congress, via Wikimedia

Commons

Photo of Liberty Bell by William Harpine, copyright @ by William D. Harpine

Lincoln versus Trump: Thanksgiving Messages by Two Republican Presidents

I hope that all of my dear readers in the United States enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday on November 28. Did you take time at the Thanksgiving table to give a message saying what you are thankful for?

Let’s look at Thanksgiving messages by the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, and the upcoming Republican president, Donald Trump. Lincoln, writing in the midst of the American Civil War, issued a proclamation of thanks, unity, and forgiveness. Trump, in contrast, offered thanks that his political enemies met their downfall in the November 2024 election. A positive message, a hostile message, but both giving thanks. As we compare those two messages, we can reflect, we can learn about our own souls. Do we give thanks for ongoing good, or for crushing our enemies? Do we seek reconciliation, or triumph? And which of the two men was right? Although Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation uplifted me, while Trump’s odious thoughts left me sickened, I hesitate to say that one of them was factually right and the other wrong. Let’s look at why.

Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation

Abraham Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving proclamation on October 3, 1863. Americans, both north and south, littered the American Civil War’s battlefields. Lincoln would be giving his famous Gettysburg address only a few weeks later. The American Civil War took almost as many American lives as the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War added together. Lincoln offered his proclamation while unspeakable horror wracked the nation. In the midst of that disaster, Lincoln opened his proclamation by giving thanks for the harvest and the heavens. How positive can you get? 

“The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.”

It should surprise no student of history that Lincoln attributed these good things, not to his own leadership, but exclusively to God.

Although he acknowledged the war, Lincoln continued to praise the progress of agriculture and industry:

“Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.”

Again, Lincoln denied that he, himself, had anything to do with the abundance. No, he attributed all the good things to God alone.

Indeed, even as Lincoln said that God punished the United States of America for the wickedness of slavery, God rewarded the nation out of his own goodness:

“No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”

Not directly attributing the war to any human failing, Lincoln reified the moral judgment: God was “dealing with us in anger” in retribution for evil. (One assumes that “our sins” referred to chattel slavery). For that reason, Lincoln asked all Americans to give thanks to God. In the midst of disaster, he said that it was time to give thanks. Accepting the war and suffering to be just, Lincoln considered God to be “beneficent:”

“I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

Only then did Lincoln call, not for revenge, but for healing. He implored for …

“… the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.”

What Did the Gettysburg Address Really Say?

Lincoln’s response to horror and disaster was to give thanks to God, to emphasize the positive, and to call for restoration. Does it come as any surprise that so many Americans, including me, consider Lincoln to be not only our most eloquent, but also our greatest president? Let us now compare Lincoln’s uplifting proclamation with Donald Trump’s Thanksgiving post.

Trump’s Truth Social Post Gave Thanks for Vanquishing His Political Opponents

We fallen human beings often wish ill upon our enemies. Sadly, not all of us think and feel like Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, in conflict, in wartime, people often thank God for vanquishing their enemies. That is nothing new. In his Truth Social Post for Thanksgiving, Trump gave thanks – without mentioning God – for putting aside the “Radical Left Lunatics:”

Trump’s post reads, in its entirety:

Donald Trump, official portrait

“Happy Thanksgiving to all, including to the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country, but who have miserably failed, and will always fail, because their ideas and policies are so hopelessly bad that the great people of our Nation just gave a landslide victory to those who want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Don’t worry, our Country will soon be respected, productive, fair, and strong, and you will be, more than ever before, proud to be an American!” 

Trump gave only sarcastic thanks to the “Radical Left Lunatics.” While Lincoln obliquely condemned slavery, which was an unquestionable evil, Trump branded liberal policies as “hopelessly bad.” He falsely claimed to have obtained a “landslide victory.” As of today, December 1, 2024, with almost all of the votes counted, Trump received 49.9% of the popular vote, while Harris took 48.3%. Trump certainly won, but advantage of a mere 1.6% hardly counts as a landslide.

Trump said his opponents had “miserably failed, and will always fail.” Under his administration, however, “our Country will soon be respected, productive, fair, and strong.” The failure of others was merely an opportunity for Trump to achieve success. 

Trump gave thanks to himself and his own policies for the triumphs that had not yet occurred, but which, he said, surely would, because he and his cohorts, the winners, “want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Trump did not give a message of unity. No, instead, Trump’s dark Thanksgiving message gave no credit to God and allowed no humanity to his opponents. He depicted a dark struggle between “lunatics” who wanted to destroy America, as compared with himself, who wanted to restore America.

Now, truly, apocalyptic rhetoric is often followed by a biblical Jeremiad: that is to say, in biblical terms that he himself probably did not understand, Trump pushed forward a vision of disaster and collapse, followed by restoration. Instead of making that victory out to be divine, instead of emulating Lincoln, who gave God all of the credit, Trump took the glory for himself.

Trump Against the "Radical Leftists"

 

Conclusion

Lincoln’s upcoming 1864 election gave the nation a stark choice: vote for Lincoln to end slavery but continue the bloodshed, or defeat him in the interest of an unjust peace in which a divided nation would continue to enslave unpaid and abused workers. The United States also faced a stark choice in the 2024 election. Trump’s Thanksgiving message accentuated that choice while emphasizing our nation’s ongoing divisions. Still, in contrast, during the American Civil War, a calamity of internal chaos that exceeded any domestic horror of later centuries, Lincoln looked to the positive and asked God to heal the nation; yet, in a time of relative peace and prosperity, Trump attacked his enemies. .

And who was right? Did the nation truly heed Lincoln’s plea for healing? Less than two short years after Lincoln’s proclamation, a pro-slavery assassin ended the president’s life. Sadly, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, and the Ku Klux Klan quickly replaced slavery, leaving millions of formerly enslaved workers only a little bit better off than they had been. A division between the former free states and the former slave states still left its shadow on the 2024 election results. Just look at any election map. So, who was right? Do we give thanks for our imperfectly healed wounds? Or do we continue the cruel battle that began when Confederate soldiers shelled Fort Sumter in 1861? I shudder to think.

The Family Thanksgving Speech: What Are You Thankful For?

by William D. Harpine  

Copyright © by William D. Harpine

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner, 1863, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Donald Trump, official White House photo

What Did the Gettysburg Address Really Say?

Abraham Lincoln, 1863

The United States of America’s most famous speech, Abraham Lincoln’s November 19, 1863, Gettysburg Address praised the thousands of young men who gave their lives to repel Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North and, according to some, turn the tide of the American Civil War.

Lincoln gave no vacuous speech uttering empty praises for the war’s dead. No, he called for policy. He called for action. He asked the nation to continue the war.

Standing on a platform at the cemetery’s muddy excavation site, Lincoln spoke with surpassing eloquence. American schoolchildren learn his famous phrases:

“Four score and seven years ago.”

“Conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

But let us not miss the point. In this most magnificent of all epideictic speeches, Lincoln called passionately for a controversial and bloody policy: to continue the Civil War until the Union was restored and justice could reclaim the American ethos. The American Civil War’s appalling bloodshed and brutality shocked the nation, as hardly a household anywhere in the North or South had escaped the grief of losing a husband, brother, son, or cousin. Lincoln was not, in 1863, a popular man. 

Today, such vague, almost spiritual, value-laden rhetoric seems strangely unfamiliar. Indeed, in our cynical, technocratic 21st century, we expect to decide policies by nitpicking analysis, statistics, proof, and expert testimony. Lincoln offered none of that. Instead, he discussed values. His central value was simple. Brave men had consecrated Gettysburg’s hillsides with their blood – as they fought for the Union and against the cruel institution of chattel slavery. It was their values, the value of freedom, the value of justice, of equality, of wise and just government, that justified continuing the war.

By this point in his presidency, Lincoln had overcome some of his initial reticence and was hinting more and more boldly about the evils of slavery. Keep in mind that, although cynical southern apologists frequently saw slavery as a positive good, no one with a conscience could possibly believe them. The idea that human beings could be captured, kidnapped, and beaten, to force them to work for nothing, appalls everyone who knows right from wrong. Reasoned argument was not the point. The time for reasoning was over. It was time for justice: that is why Lincoln’s key point, which was so often overlooked when we read this speech, comes down to these arguments:

First, Lincoln, the great sovereign of words, said that actions count more than words:

“The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” [italics added]

Second, he said that the dead, no longer able to fight, implicitly asked us to continue their noble struggle. That is a policy. That is action:

“It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

“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 gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…”

Third, and, finally, out of the horrors of war, the nation had an opportunity – a God-given chance – to reform itself, to regain union according to justice:

“That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Government “of the people, by the people, for the people” was no empty phrase. Wise, just government never appears by accident. According to Lincoln, only after the United States pursued its bitter conflict and paid the horrible price for the wickedness of slavery, at which he hinted in this momentous speech – then, and only then could we have government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

From values, we get policies. From suffering, we learn terrible lessons. From justice, we hope to reconcile.

Sadly, according to what I read in the news, that lesson has still not been fully learned. There can be, however, no greater lesson for a president to teach. And this, my dear readers, is why Abraham Lincoln was our greatest president. 

by William D. Harpine

Prince Harry Talked about Sacrifice and Freedom at the 2018 Invictus Games

Abraham Lincoln and the Definition of “Liberty:” A Lesson for Our Time

Copyright © 2024 by William D. Harpine

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This remarkable picture is the only known photograph of Lincoln at Gettysburg. It appears to have been exposed some time before his speech. Lincoln's head is in the marked red box. 

Interestingly, Lincoln's friend Edward Everett was the day's featured speaker, and Lincoln was invited as an afterthought. 

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner, 1863, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Lincoln at Gettysburg, unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address: “The Better Angels of Our Nature”

Lincoln's Inauguration

Can logic and morality overcome our fears? Can honest reassurances restore trust? Can people, overwhelmed by the fear of change, even remember “the better angels of our nature?” Or, on March 4, 1861, when Abraham Lincoln gave his First Inaugural Address, had the United States reached juncture that could be resolved only by bloodshed and horror? Lincoln’s magnificent rhetorical effort may have marked the limits of what we can expect rhetoric to do.

Having won the United States presidency, Abraham Lincoln faced a dilemma: save the Union, or end slavery? Feeling unable to do both, Lincoln appealed, on March 4, 1861, in his first inaugural address, to “the better angels of our nature.” Such a noble theme, such a futile theme. Ultimately, the Union collapsed, to be reborn years later as a nominally free nation.

In this speech, Lincoln futilely appealed to reason, then to law, and then to conscience. A futile trifecta of rhetoric: logic, imperatives, and morality, the three principles on which civilization rests. Any school child knows that Lincoln failed in his central purpose. A few weeks later, the South Carolina militia attacked Fort Sumter. By 1865, hardly a household anywhere in either the United States of America or the Confederate States of America had not lost a husband, son, or brother to the heartless conflict.

Lincoln spoke on that day in March in a final, desperate, hopeless attempt to save the Union. The public already knew that Lincoln’s policies were moderately anti-slavery, and that the Republican party’s agenda was to prevent the spread of slavery while leaving it alone in places where it already existed. Even that modest policy was enough to terrify southern conservatives.

So, Lincoln made a choice: his message on March 4 was not to speak forthrightly against slavery, but instead to reassure White southerners. In this speech, he made one last, desperate attempt to save the union of states. His message failed. Maybe emotions were already running too high. Maybe Lincoln’s precise, sincere logic was helpless against the blind fear of change. Maybe, in the depths of their empty hearts, the southern aristocrats already knew that Lincoln was right—but didn’t care. Surely knowing all of this, Lincoln made his last, desperate plea for union and peace.


Lincoln Promised to Preserve Slavery

In 1858, Lincoln had warned about a “house divided” and rued that the nation could not endure “half slave and half free.”

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Earlier Post: Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” Speech
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Nevertheless, in this First Inaugural Address, Lincoln began by reassuring White Southerners. He first asserted that he had, throughout his entire political career, promised not to interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed. Indeed, at his speech’s very outset, Lincoln noted that “the people of the Southern States” were worried that “their property [i.e., enslaved workers], and their peace and personal security are to be endangered.” Lincoln’s thesis was that “There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension.” This was a complete surrender on the issue of slavery. Ironically, rejecting Lincoln’s concessions, the South embarked on a course that, four years later, ripped their cruel, cherished institution of chattel slavery from its roots.

In any case, to reinforce his assurance, Lincoln quoted his own statement from the first Lincoln- Douglas debate:

“I do but quote from one of [my] speeches when I declare that ‘I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.’ Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them.”

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Earlier Post: Abraham Lincoln, White Supremacist, The First Lincoln-Douglas Debate

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Lincoln then cited the Republican Party platform, which specifically called for states’ rights: “the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively.” That, again, denied any ambition to abolish slavery.

Lincoln also cited the United States Constitution’s requirement that fugitive slaves needed to be returned to their enslavers and endorsed the Fugitive Slave Law. In this speech, Lincoln even specifically endorsed a constitutional amendment to protect slavery. Yet, even this was not enough to reassure White Southerners.


Sectionalism: Is the Union Forever?

Having promised not to end slavery, Lincoln followed by warning the southern states that they had no legal right to leave the Union. “I hold,” he said, “that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.” He offered a series of legalistic arguments that no state had the right to leave the Union. He cited contract law. He decried the lawlessness of seceding from the Union:

“Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.”

Anarchy is, of course, at least in theory, the very opposite of conservative thought. Or so one might think.

Toward the speech’s end, however, possibly reigniting the worries of the southern states’ White voters, Lincoln did reiterate the ultimate dilemma about chattel slavery:

“One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended.”

Lincoln nevertheless placed the onus of civil war entirely on the southern states, while denying that such a conflict could be in any way his responsibility:

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend it.’”

Again, Lincoln’s point was legalistic: he had sworn an oath, which he would honorably follow. He turned again to logic:

“Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them.”

Yet, in a matter of weeks, they separated indeed.  

And Our “Better Angels”

Ever the optimist, however, Lincoln appealed to everyone, northerners and southerners alike, to remember the nation’s heritage and to live by conscience. As so often happens, appealing to conscience is a forlorn faith, the last useless refuge of honest rhetoricians. In one of the most dramatic passages of any American public speech, Lincoln appealed to friendship, “the mystic chords of memory,” “the chorus of the Union,” and, finally, so hopefully, to “the better angels of our nature.” This was one of the greatest passages from one of history’s greatest speakers:

“The mystic chords of memory, stretching 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.”

Yet, how quickly the better angels were crushed! Fort Sumter was followed by a long series of horrible battles, scorched earth tactics, and total war in the Shenandoah Valley and the March through Georgia. In 1865, General Sherman attacked the capital of South Carolina, which quickly burned to the ground. As the Roman historian Tacitus said, “they make a desert, they call it peace.” By 1861, the nation had passed beyond what rhetoric could accomplish.

Conclusion

Today, we must ask ourselves the same questions. Do we feel the swelling chorus of Union? Are we touched by “the better angels of our nature?” Or do we, instead, allow fear and discord to rule over us like the tyrants they are?

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Earlier Post: Frederick Douglass’ 1852 Fourth of July Speech and the Christian Right

 
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Image: Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

One Searing Phrase: Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” Speech

Abraham Lincoln, 1863

“And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:

“And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?” (Matthew 12:24-25) [italics added]

Sometimes, a single searing phrase blasts our moral dilemmas into the open. In his “House Divided” speech, future president Abraham Lincoln woefully prophesized the United States of America’s oncoming calamity. The era faced a fundamental moral and political choice between slavery and freedom. Which way would the United States turn? Toward the light, or plunged into the darkness? No one knew.


Lincoln’s Warning

On June 16, 1858, Abraham Lincoln accepted the nomination to be United States senator from Illinois. Speaking in the old Illinois State Capitol, he warned that the United States of America could not be permanently divided into free States and slave states. Sooner or later, he predicted, the nation would become one or the other.

This led Lincoln to utter one of his most dramatic rhetorical passages. Rephrasing the Bible, he said:

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Most of his audience surely not only recognized Lincoln’s biblical allusion, but grasped its prophetic implications. Into what abyss was the United States of America falling due to the sin of slavery? Worse, was Satan divided against Satan? In other words, did the backwards, rural South and the ever-smug North conspire to perpetuate a wicked national philosophy? Did Lincoln not imply all of that?

Dred Scott

Now, in fact, most of Lincoln’s speech offered a technical discussion of the Dred Scott decision. As we recall from our history classes, Dred Scott was enslaved by a southerner who voluntarily took Scott to live in a state where slavery was illegal. After returning home, Scott secured an attorney and filed a lawsuit claiming that, since he had lived in a free state, not as a fugitive but under his master’s supervision, he was no longer a slave and was thus entitled to his freedom. An extremely conservative Supreme Court ruled otherwise on the shocking ground that no one of African descent could be a citizen of the United States. The court continued that no person of African descent could have standing to file a lawsuit against a white man in court. Completing the humiliation, the court further ruled that for the government to free an enslaved person would deprive the slave master of his rights under the Fifth Amendment.

This created a political problem. Favoring a moderate, gradual anti-slavery policy, the Republican Party of the 1850’s opposed allowing slavery to spread to any of the new territories that were eventually becoming states. Lincoln ruefully noted that the Dred Scott decision devastated that policy. The Dred Scott decision meant that Congress could not forbid slavery in any state or territory. At the same time, Lincoln knew that the Dred Scott decision by no means put an end to the slavery controversy:

“Agitation [on the slavery issue] has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’” [italics added]

Slavery was evil, he implied, and a nation could not endure half slave and half free. The Dred Scott case was the impetus, but Lincoln reified the controversy into a massive moral dilemma. The United States could not be all good and all bad at the same time. Indeed, he prophesied that the United States could either fall into the abyss of oppression, or free itself from slavery entirely. Yes, the Dred Scott decision had eliminated any middle course. More importantly, Lincoln’s biblical allusion confronted the nation with a moral controversy that would follow the United States through the coming horrors of the Civil War and the monstrous tragedies of racial oppression which followed, and which, we must remember, have not entirely evaporated.

Earlier Post: Abraham Lincoln and the Definition of "Liberty" 


Hope for the Future

Lincoln continued:

“I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved --I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

Yet, of course, the Union did dissolve two short years later, reuniting only after enormous suffering. When the Civil War ended in 1865, more than half 600,000 Americans had died, my home state of Virginia was, like much of the South, reduced to starvation amongst smoldering ruins, and Lincoln’s successors still needed to figure out how to put the battered nation back together into one piece. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution seemingly settled the question—would the nation be half slave or half free?—but not until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was there any serious movement to implement the Declaration of Independence’s value that “all men are created equal.” (Indeed, not until the 19th Amendment in 1920 did women gain the right to vote.) 

Yet, despite the bitter times, Lincoln ended this famous speech by discussing the Republican Party’s rapid growth and expressing his hope that the (moderately) anti-slavery cause would, one day, triumph:

“The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail—If we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay, but sooner or later the victory is sure to come.”

Lincoln expounded his ideas at greater length in the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. Lincoln ultimately lost the 1858 senatorial election but won the presidential election in 1860. The rest is history.

Earlier Post: Abraham Lincoln, White Supremacist: The First Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Earlier Post: Abraham Lincoln, White Supremacist, Part 2: The Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate

In a complex irony, the Republican Party of 2023 is the party that stands against any expansion of civil rights.

 
Is Our House Still Divided?

Still, the repercussions of Lincoln’s dire warning reverberate today. Can a nation divided against itself long stand? For Lincoln’s biblical text also says, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation.” Can a nation survive when divided against itself? When angry hordes, supported by public officials who should know better, attacked the United States Capitol with a mission to hang Congressional leaders and reinstate the losing presidential candidate? When a sitting member of Congress called for secession in 2023? Indeed, in 2023, is it “woke” for the descendants of slaves to have the chance to go to college or get good jobs? Should schoolchildren be shielded from the history of slavery? Should rogue police cite flimsy excuses to gun down the descendants of slaves on the street? That is, is our house still divided? More to the point, can it stand while divided? As was his habit, Lincoln spoke for the ages.

With one striking biblical sentence, Lincoln posed the nation’s ultimate challenge. The nation could not be half good and half evil, could not be half slave and half free. A nation that stands against itself has doomed itself. A crisis was coming, Lincoln warned, and no one could foresee its outcome with certainty. Each generation since has had a chance to respond. Or not.

Photo of Abraham Lincoln, 1863, Moses Parker Rice, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image of Dred Scott, Missouri Digital Heritage

Abraham Lincoln, White Supremacist, Part 2: The Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Abraham Lincoln

On September 18, 1858 during the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate in Charleston, Illinois, future president Abraham Lincoln declared:

“I as much as any other man, am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man.”

Yes, Lincoln favored white supremacy, that is, he stated both that White people should be in charge, and that White people were superior in nature to Black people.

Yesterday, browsing on social media, I stirred up a bit of dissension when I commented that Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president, was a white supremacist. I would think that anyone familiar with the United States history would have known that. Lincoln certainly disliked slavery; however, as he rose to political prominence, he equally opposed racial equality. His seven debates against Stephen Douglas during their 1858 campaign for Illinois senator made him the leading moderately anti-slavery candidate. So, today, let us look carefully at the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate to clarify Lincoln’s opinion about racial equality.

Earlier Post: Abraham Lincoln, White Supremacist: The First Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Lincoln was a creature of his time. His views were politic, and he could never have been elected president in 1860 if he openly favored abolition. The abolition of slavery was, at that time, considered to be a radical policy. Those are important matters, but they do not refute the simple reality that Lincoln favored white supremacy as a matter of public policy, and I don’t understand

Lincoln Memorial

why that causes so much controversy. Nor is the issue outdated. Consider that members of Lincoln’s party, the Republican Party, sometimes today advocate some version of white supremacy themselves. Nor do we, citizens of the United States, do ourselves any favor if we whitewash our past, or if we elevate Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president, into some kind of pristine demigod, remembered only as a larger-than-life statue of a marble man on a pedestal. 

With that said, I hold, as a modern white son of the South, that chattel slavery and all of the other cruel forms of forced labor are and always have been wicked, and that white supremacy is a foul philosophy. Readers who think otherwise will have little interest in the rest of this post. 


Lincoln Opposed Racial Equality

During their 1858 campaign, Douglas positioned himself as the pro-slavery candidate, while Lincoln held that slavery was evil and should not spread to any of the new states that were gradually being admitted to the Union. Lincoln carefully promised not to interfere with slavery where it already existed. This was, overall, considered a liberal position. 

For example, during this fourth debate, Lincoln specifically said that the White and Black races should not be equal, and that he certainly did not intend for Black people to have the right to vote. It was also his policy to keep juries all-white, to keep Black people out of public office, and to outlaw racially mixed marriages. He stated these points at the long debate’s outset:

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.”

Interesting, is it not, that the reporters noted that Lincoln’s brazenly racist comment received the audience’s applause? Yes, the assembled crowd evidently enjoyed Lincoln’s white supremacist opinions. Indeed, one wonders whether they were relieved to hear that Lincoln, although a liberal, nevertheless supported white supremacy. Evidently, even in a free state like Illinois, only a white supremacist could hope to win an election.

Lest we think that Lincoln’s views should be relegated to the 19th Century, let us remember that not until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, both adopted only in my own lifetime, 100 years after the Civil War, did the United States government take a firm stand against white supremacy and racial subjugation. What explanations, however, made Lincoln feel that white supremacy was acceptable?


Lincoln Stated that Black People Were Inferior

And, indeed, white supremacy obviously required some kind of moral justification. The standard explanation that White racists gave in the 1800s was that, according to White racists, Black people were simply not as good as White people. Lincoln baldly endorsed that view in this debate. In fact, Lincoln continued that the supposed inferiority of Black people required that Black people remain in a subordinate position:

“And I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” [italics added]

So, was Lincoln a white supremacist? That statement removed all uncertainty.  

Earlier Post: Rev. Henry J. van Dyke, Sr. and the pro-Slavery Rhetoric of the Christian Right, Civil War Style


Lincoln Was a Sympathetic White Supremacist

Nevertheless, Lincoln did advocate some level of civil rights for African Americans. That, no doubt, must have shocked some of his audience. First, he did say that African Americans should have a degree of liberty:

“I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing.”

Then, much to his audience’s delight, he immediately turned that noble assurance into a tasteless joke. Maybe he wanted to soften the shock. His joke, in turn, helped him to restate that he opposed racial equality:

“I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men.”

So, there we go. Abraham Lincoln, a sympathetic, jovial, good-hearted racial supremacist.


Conclusion

In no way do I demean Lincoln’s dramatic accomplishments as president. Although he lost the 1858 senatorial election, he was elected to be President of the United States in 1860, taking office in March 1861. He preserved our union, assets and faults and all. He led the nation through the Civil War’s horrors, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and was eventually martyred for his anti-slavery views. His legacy endures in his speeches: his pre-Civil War speeches were models of careful reasoning and audience adaptation, while some of the speeches that he gave during the Civil War are inspiring landmarks of American thought and eloquence.

Earlier Post: Abraham Lincoln and the Definition of “Liberty:” A Lesson for Our Time

Earlier Post: A White Supremacist Spoke from the Steps of the Lincoln Memorial

Also, let’s not forget that, when we call Lincoln a creature of his times, we inevitably ignore the fact that political public opinion in the United States of America was, at that time, only the public opinion of White people. Slaves struggling under the cruel lash obviously had no vote and little public voice. Even in the north, many free states still denied African Americans the right to vote. Lincoln adapted to his audience by expressing racist views. That does not mean that the entire nation was racist. It means that many people who had power were racists. Furthermore, the fact that Lincoln was elected to the presidency in 1860 shows, obviously enough, that anti-slavery sentiment was spreading in large parts of the country.

So, when we ask whether it is fair to judge Lincoln by 21st Century standards, let us remember that a great many people in 1858 already knew that slavery and racial oppression were wicked.

If circumstances allow, I hope to write more about Lincoln’s speeches, as he is justly admired as the United States’ greatest orator. We can and should admire the man; we must, however, equally remember the horrors that swirled around him.

Nor should we underestimate those horrors. The Civil War started three short years after the Lincoln-Douglas debates. That brutal conflict took almost as many American lives as the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War, and the war against terror added together. If slavery was the United States’ original sin, the penance was terrible. Nor is the penance complete. Its reverberations continue to echo through our society today. We gamble on a losing hand when we forget the past.

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P.S. I’m sure we all noticed that Lincoln favored putting “the white man” in charge, with, of course, no recognition of women. We’ll reserve that important issue for another day.

Note on the text: There were no sound recording devices in 1858; the texts of these debates were produced by skilled shorthand reporters. They are probably as accurate as such a method can be, but errors would be inevitable. These texts were printed in newspapers across the country, reaching a far larger audience than the 12,000 people estimated to have heard Lincoln and Douglas debate on that day. 

Photo of Abraham Lincoln, 1863, Moses Parker Rice, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo of Lincoln statue, National Park Service