Time to Move On

As you might have noticed there has not been a post on this blog in quite sometime now. I have been on vacation and recently came to the conclusion that the purpose of the blog has been fulfilled. I started it in March 2009 to get myself thinking and writing about my dissertation on Lincoln. After having done both of those things for well over a year, I passed my comprehensive exams. At this point in time all that is left for me to do is write the dissertation. While I am focusing on that task I will not be writing any posts here. The future of the blog beyond the end of the dissertation is uncertain right now.

Thanks for reading,

Pat

Du Bois' Lincoln

W.E.B. Du Bois

If your reading this blog post that means I passed comprehensive exams and I'm ABD--the proof of which is finally here:

Since I finished all of the writing required for the comprehensive exams, I didn't feel like jotting down much about Lincoln. Thus, the gap in the updating of the blog. Something that came up during the course of that week in trying to elaborate "my Lincoln", was W.E.B. Du Bois' Lincoln. In particular, there are two short pieces from the NAACP publication The Crisis which Du Bois wrote that I've been grappling with. Both of these articles were republished in Du Bois' Writings. Du Bois wrote "Abraham Lincoln" (May) and "Again, Lincoln" (September) for the magazine in 1922. That was a symbolic year to be writing about Lincoln as the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. on May 30, 1922. That "temple" as we should remember was dedicated not to Lincoln as emancipator but as the savior of the Union. The seating arrangements at the dedication were segregated. By this time, Re-Union had come at the price of sacrificing integration. President Harding had already been chastised by Du Bois in The Crisis earlier in the year. Du Bois' words about Lincoln from May (published in July) no one writing about the 16th President should avoid considering:


"Abraham Lincoln was a Southern poor white, of illegitimate birth, poorly educated and unusually ugly, awkward, ill-dressed. He liked smutty stories and was a politician down to his toes. Aristocrats--Jeff Davis, Seward and their ilk--despised him, and indeed he had little outwardly that compelled respect. But in that curious human way he was big inside. He had reserves and depths and when habit and convention were torn away there was something left to Lincoln--nothing to most of his contemners. There was something left, so that at the crisis he was big enough to be inconsistent--cruel, merciful; peace-loving, a fighter; despising Negroes and letting them fight and vote; protecting slavery and freeing slaves. He was a man--a big, inconsistent, brave man"-p. 1196.


In September, Du Bois found himself confronted by responses to the above description of Lincoln. Du Bois found that people did not want to have a complex Lincoln. Nor did they tend to look at great historical personages with warts and all. "As a result of this, no sooner does a great man die than we begin to whitewash him. We seek to forget all that was small and mean and unpleasant and remember the fine and brave and good." What distinguished Lincoln as opposed to Washington for Du Bois was Lincoln's inconsistency and difficulties. As he put it, "The scars and foibles and contradictions of the Great do not diminish but enhance the worth and meaning of their upward struggle." pp. 1197, 1198. To his detractors, Du Bois asked if he had gotten the facts of what he said about Lincoln wrong. Well, he did.


Granted, Du Bois did not get everything wrong about Lincoln. The facts that were false still carry a symbolic meaning narrative. That is to say, despite Lincoln's shortcomings and inconsistencies, he was big enough to become Abraham Lincoln. However, just for the record, Seward didn't hate Lincoln and became one his closest advisors. Lincoln also was not of illegitimate birth. The Lincoln family was not as poor or Southern as it might come off from Du Bois' description either. There are things Du Bois' characterization left unsaid, but it can still serve as a starting point in trying to determine how Lincoln's inconsistency was both an aid and a hindrance, and, how it made him who he was.

Comprehensive Exams Are Approaching

Starting next week, I'll be taking my comprehensive exams which are the last hurdle in the way of ABD (all but dissertation) status. I explained in my last post what the format of the comprehensive exam is (basically: write 100+ pages in five days which attempt to answer five questions, edit for two days, retain sanity). I'm not allowed to see the questions I'll be answering beforehand, but I will be able to select one of two questions from each of my five committee members.

In the meantime I do have some idea about the general areas the questions might come from, with my anticipations in brackets, to be thinking about: my Lincoln (i.e., why Lincoln and what do I want to say about him?), representations of Lincoln (what genres has Lincoln been depicted in and how has it been done?), the counterfactual Lincoln (what if he had lived?), Lincoln's use of religious symbolism (Lincoln was not a doctrinal religious person, why might he have used familiar symbols?), and Lincoln in African American memory (how has Lincoln been remembered by this community?).

I'm going to try to answer all of the questions in a manner which elaborates what I want to say about Lincoln (the more I figure this out now, the less I'll have to figure out later). I'm also hoping to come up with a title for this project during the course of the week. I'll be listening to music the entire time so perhaps something will stand out from a lyric or something I write. I haven't decided to make a playlist since I have enough music that tracks would still be playing a few months from now if I hit play and kept my computer from shutting down. Classical music won't help with the process of coming up with a title, but I'll likely listen to it anyway. I was listening to Sousa earlier and right now, this:



If my answers to the questions are any good, I'll post the main thrust of them after comps are over.

The Progress Report

Months of Beard Growth While I Waited for A Date to Defend

My dissertation proposal defense was held last Friday (April 16). The verdict of the committee (3 political scientists and 2 historians) was that I passed the defense and will move on to the comprehensive exams. Those exams will take place in May.

The specific comments that I got from the committee (besides, "I like the proposal") focused on the sense that I was communicating others' Lincoln really well, but not really saying what my Lincoln is. A book that came out in 2008, Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World, contains in its subtitle the general point that I need to present a new perspective, that is, mine. The volume itself contains recent essays by notable historians. I am going to reread several of the essays that deal with two areas I'm concentrating on at the moment: use and abuse of Lincoln (or maybe "theft" as David Blight put it in his illuminating essay in Our Lincoln, "The Theft of Lincoln in Scholarship Politics, and Public Memory") and Lincoln's contradictions (Lincoln was after all "big enough to be inconsistent", as Du Bois said).

I've been thinking about the disparate topics on Lincoln that went into the proposal, all of which have been dealt with in someway or another in posts on this blog. Having to come up with a unifying theme for all of the subjects means that some things will have to be scaled back or simply scuttled. At this time I would say that the contradictory Lincoln is the theme that will frame the dissertation. The late George M. Fredrickson already used the Du Bois statement for a great book title Big Enough to be Inconsistent: Abraham Lincoln Confronts Race and Slavery so I'll have to come up with something else.


The comprehensive exam questions will help in deciding on the framework. Until then I'll be buried in source materials trying to preempt the exam questions (which I don't know yet). A brief description of how comprehensive exams work: Each of the committee members gives two questions, pick one; Write 25 pages per day per question; Two (2) days to edit said pages; Hope you made some sense during the week and have retained your sanity. Added degree of difficulty: I have to start teach my American Politics summer course the day after comps end.

Lincoln Looks West (Book Review)

Richard W. Etulain, ed., Lincoln Looks West: From the Mississippi to the Pacific (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010).

In his novel Tancred (1847), Benjamin Disraeli casts doubt on an Englishman’s inevitable return from the East by having his character Coningsby remind the reader, “even Napoleon regretted that he ever re-crossed the Mediterranean. The East is a career” (p. 141). It is important to remember that in Victorian era America, the West was a career. The discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in California began a gold rush the year after Tancred appeared. The influx in population (which certainly included many Chinese immigrants) helped to push California toward Statehood. Its entrance into the United States as a free State would form a pivotal and controversial part of the 1850 Missouri Compromise as half the State was North of the “sacred” 36°30' line of the 1820 Missouri Compromise. In 1859, Lincoln gave a lecture in which he pointed to the “great difference between Young America and Old Fogy.” Young America thirsts for new territory, is complex and relies on “Discoveries, Inventions, and Improvements.” According to Lincoln, “yankees,” unlike Adam, “the first of all fogies”, and persons in Adamic conditions (“indians and Mexican greasers” who failed to find California’s gold “for centuries”) contain a “difference in habit of observation.” That Lincoln wanted to preserve the West as free territory for these same Yankees could be seen as early as his support of the Wilmot Proviso during the Mexican War.

When Lincoln was nominated as the Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1860, Illinois was a western State. Indeed, all the States that border the Mississippi River were seen as part of the West in the middle of the 19^th century. The transcontinental railroad Lincoln’s party wanted to be built was actually an object of national desire. As Franklin Pierce’s Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis had selectively used topographical data to push for a railroad line on the 32^nd parallel. The necessity of turning those western territories into States was also felt in both the North and the South. Refusal to compromise and verbal conflicts (and an armed one in Kansas) over how to carve up the American West into free and slave States were part of what drove the country toward Civil War. Besides the political appointments the Republicans and Democrats could hand out when in charge, various other types of careers could be made in the West as can be seen from the familiar names of Leland Stanford, George Hearst, Charles Goodnight, Bill Pickett, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Wyatt Earp, Kit Carson, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid and Buffalo Bill. Being from the West, Lincoln already had a deep connection to it and would do his best to develop it throughout his career.

In this new edited volume, Lincoln Looks West, Richard Etulain suggests that, “Like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James K. Polk before him, Lincoln reshaped the political-geographical map of the United States” (p. 49). He also notes that despite the existence of “more than fifteen thousand books written about Abraham Lincoln, none has sketched out the full dimensions of his important connections with the trans-Mississippi American West” (p. ix). This book then, is a step in that direction.

With his contribution (a highly detailed and nearly 60 page biographical essay) Etulain does more than give the standard editor’s introduction to a volume where a little bit about the content of the chapters is relayed to the reader. He handles that perfunctory task in the very brief Preface. Etulain’s essay is masterfully done and is bound to help the reader see Lincoln as a “virtual founding father of western politics” (p. 33). Lincoln was able to dole out patronage positions in the 11 western territories, three of which (Arizona, Idaho and Montana) were organized during his presidency, and four States, including Nevada which came into the Union in 1864. Etulain charts a course of Lincoln’s manifold engagements with the American West from the 1840s to the assassination in 1865. Whatever one thinks about Lincoln and the West as seen through this nexus, it is easy to agree with Etulain that “among Lincoln’s many designations, he deserves to be known as a Man of the West” (p. 58).

Each of the essays in the book discusses significant aspects of Lincoln’s relationship with the West. Only two of the chapters are newly written work (Michael S. Green on Lincoln’s views on western issues in the 1850s and Paul M. Zall on Lincoln’s friend and “junkyard dog” in the Pacific Northwest, Dr. Anson G. Henry). All of the other chapters have been reprinted so on the whole, if one is up to date on the scholarship regarding Lincoln and the West from the last two decades (note: two of the essays are much older and date back to the 1940s), this volume will be a disappointment. For everyone else, this book will be thought provoking. The contributions themselves deal with Lincoln’s views on Mexican War, Lincoln’s dealings with western territorial appointments, Lincoln’s differences with Mormons on equality, and Lincoln and the Indians.

The weakest chapter of the group is that of Earl S. Pomeroy on Lincoln, Nevada and the 13^th Amendment. The piece is five pages long and is nothing more than a corrective note. It tells us that, beyond a story told in print in 1898 by journalist Charles Anderson Dana, there is no reason to believe that Lincoln wanted to tie the admission of the State of Nevada to the passage of the 13^th Amendment.

In stark contrast, David A. Nichols’ chapter on “Lincoln and the Indians” will likely startle general interest readers and deserves an overview here. Lincoln historians of course know all about Lincoln’s Indian policies—the fact that they are almost altogether mum on the policies, notwithstanding. Nichols’ piece is a summation of his underappreciated book from 1978, Lincoln and the Indians. Nichols details Lincoln’s unfamiliarity with the Indian System, his initial abandonment of the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) which led to Confederate intervention and a refugee situation in Kansas, and his management of the aftermath of the Dakota War of 1862 in Minnesota. Lincoln handled Indian affairs patronage positions as if they were any other political plums he had at his disposal to issue. Some of his Indian agents had never even met an Indian. In the Indian Territory, Lincoln did nothing to combat the rumor spread by the Confederates that the Federal Government would take the Indians’ slaves. The Cherokee Nation, for instance, split in two. Some Cherokees followed Stand Watie in joining the Confederacy and others led by John Ross supported the Union. Still, there were others who fled the Indian Territory altogether for Kansas. The other issue was the uprising by a branch of the Sioux who were cheated out of their annuities in Minnesota. Three hundred and three Sioux had been convicted of rape and murder in trials “averaging only ten to fifteen minutes per case” (p.216). The Minnesotans wanted to purge their State of all the Indians within their borders whether they had taken part in the violence or not. After trying to delegate the authority over the death sentences, Lincoln reviewed each of the cases personally. He ultimately reduced the number of executions to 38—which is still the largest mass execution by the government in United States history. Lincoln agreed to have Indians in Minnesota and Kansas removed to reservations. This policy resulted in the deaths of far more Indians than the 38 Sioux men who were executed at Mankato, Minnesota in 1862. Indian suffering and death were also implicit in Lincoln’s three major western policies: the transcontinental railroad, the Homestead Act and mineral development. All three plans for developing the West took place on lands where Indians lived and it was the policy of the government through the creation of reservations to get the Indians out of the way of “progress.” The same Lincoln who was engaging in total war in the South “was obsessed with a goal and would use violence to resolve problems when Indians, or anyone else, forcibly got in the way of his highest priorities” (p. 227).

Mark Neely’s essay gives us a Lincoln who was not precluded from a chance of reelection to the House of Representatives by opposing the Mexican War, but instead a Lincoln who was tired of the office. Neely tries to demonstrate Lincoln’s criticism of President Polk could not have hurt his career because his constituents never heard about it. This lack of recognition in turn frustrated Lincoln who was then ready to return to his law practice in Illinois.

Michael Green gives us a glimpse of how the West formed Lincoln politically as he tried to determine its future. Green focuses on the crucial decade of the 1850s where Lincoln would develop and refine the antislavery arguments he would use in the Cooper Union Address—the speech Harold Holzer said made Lincoln President.

Vincent Tegeder, Deren Kellogg, Robert Johannsen and Paul Zall all deal with Lincoln and the territories. Handling requests for the territorial patronage was probably Lincoln’s most direct and time consuming engagement with the West during his presidency. Tegeder’s contribution is the shortest but most wide-ranging of the four. He attempts to show how the Radical Republicans tried to make the West solidly Republican territory and “used the territories as ‘pilot plants’ for the later reconstruction of the South” (p. 131). Kellogg portrays the New Mexico Territory and Lincoln’s use of the patronage there as being more akin to a border State than that of a western territory. Johannsen gives us a Lincoln who is unknowledgeable about the Far West and uses the patronage in the Washington Territory as a way to reward his friends, not as a way to give the far flung settlers what they wanted. In this sense, Lincoln did not differ from his predecessors. Zall’s chapter deals with one of those friends whom Lincoln rewarded through the Pacific Coast patronage: Dr. Anson G. Henry. Henry was a medical doctor who had known Lincoln for many years and prescribed the narcotics Lincoln took for his “hypo.” The doctor was also a thoroughly political man and acted as Lincoln’s eyes and ears in the Pacific Northwest. Lincoln had wished to appoint Henry to the governorship of Washington Territory for his years of service and loyalty. Andrew Johnson honored this commitment after Lincoln’s assassination but the Brother Jonathan sank (taking Henry down with it) off the coast of northern California before Henry could be confirmed by the Senate and take office.

Larry Schweikart’s chapter about Lincoln’s engagement with the Mormons is the least straightforward of the bunch as he is influenced by but not wholly in agreement with the West Coast Straussian Harry Jaffa. Like Jaffa, too much of what Schweikart writes is tangential to Lincoln. For example, he discusses the extent to which Lincoln was an Aristotelian—no major Aristotelian philosopher, let alone Aristotle himself, is mentioned in Lincoln’s Collected Works. By contrast, Euclid, the Greek thinker Lincoln was most familiar with, appears only six times. Schweikart’s emphasis is on the distance between and Lincoln’s views and that of the LDS Church on equality and slavery. Lincoln’s strategy was to cut off Mormon antipathy by leaving them (and Brigham Young in particular) alone. This move greatly improved relations between the Utah Territory and the Federal Government. Lincoln’s policy extended as far as not enforcing the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862 in Utah.

Lincoln Looks West is an important contribution to Lincoln scholarship and deserves a wide readership. The essays in it will aid even general readers in understanding how important the Trans-Mississippi West was to Lincoln and how he tried to shape the West during his presidency. Lincoln’s obvious connections to the West have been not been given enough attention over the years which necessitated the creation of this book. Lincoln Looks West does us a great service in moving us toward a more complete image of Lincoln.

Contributor List and Essay Titles

Richard W. Etulain “Abraham Lincoln and the Trans-Mississippi American West: An Introductory Overview”

Mark E. Neely, Jr. “Lincoln and the Mexican War: Argument by Analogy”

Michael S. Green “Lincoln, the West, and the Antislavery Politics of the 1850s”

Earl S. Pomeroy “Lincoln, the Thirteenth Amendment, and the Admission of Nevada”

Vincent G. Tegeder “Lincoln and the Territorial Patronage: The Ascendancy of the Radicals in the West”

Deren Earl Kellogg “Lincoln’s New Mexico Patronage: Saving the Far Southwest for the Union”

Robert W. Johannsen “The Tribe of Abraham: Lincoln and the Washington Territory”

Paul M. Zall “Dr. Anson G. Henry (1804-1865): Lincoln’s Junkyard Dog”

Larry Schweikart “The Mormon Connection: Lincoln, the Saints, and the Crisis of Equality”

David A. Nichols “Lincoln and the Indians”

The Lincoln Assassination and Modern Comedy

Outside of documentaries, Lincoln has been depicted on screen almost solely in the comedic frame in recent years. I wrote an overview last year about Lincoln's appearance in film which coincided with early filmmaking, and, also about the non-serious path Lincoln has taken on screen in our own time. An insightful article on Lincoln's humor (lest we forget that Lincoln was something of a funnyman himself) was written by Benjamin P. Thomas. As one can see from the clip above, Lincoln's humor, which we might not understand today, is not the main focus of this post. Instead, I want to show the irony of the current situation: Lincoln was genuinely funny. Yet, the serious portrayals of Lincoln are missing this element and thus, without this part of the Lincoln memory, he is turned into the butt of the joke to make him humorous again.

The assassination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth has become a common scene to make light of. In The Whitest Kids U'Know sketch in the video above, there is an inversion of Booth's goal. The historical assassination of Lincoln (along with those of Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward--neither of these latter two attempts was successful) was supposed to decapitate the Federal government and send the North into chaos thereby giving the Confederacy a chance to survive. Booth thought he would be a hero after the event. In the sketch, Booth's aim is to shut up an annoying President who is ruining a performance of Hamlet (the play during the actual assassination was Our American Cousin) with a vampire subplot. Booth uses not a Deringer pistol, but a hammer on Lincoln's butt (I said Lincoln was the butt of the joke, after all) to complete the assassination. The foul-mouthed Lincoln depicted by The Whitest Kids U'Know can be contrasted with the similarly out of character drunk and crude Lincoln in Hard Drinkin' Lincoln (the real Lincoln was a teetotaler). All of the episodes of Hard Drinkin' Lincoln are about the same: Booth ends up shooting an obnoxious Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, usually to the delight of the crowd. Here is just one example. Finally, Family Guy, a show with a much more developed sense of humor takes on the assassination with its typical non sequitur cut scene. Booth is seated behind Lincoln in the Presidential box and is annoyed by Lincoln's stovepipe hat which is blocking the view. Lincoln himself is laughing loudly and answers his cellphone. At this point, Family Guy really distinguishes itself from the previous two examples. Lincoln's ringtone is "Dixie" and he jokingly (and not very subtly) reminds his interlocutor about whom should be thanked for making it possible to take "that black chick" home. Booth then pulls a Deringer from his coat. Lincoln did actually like the song "Dixie", his opponents said he promoted sexual relations between whites and blacks and in Lincoln's last speech (which Booth attended), Lincoln's perceived promotion of African American citizenship pushed Booth toward assassination.

When it comes to taking Lincoln ridiculously out of character at his assassination for a laugh, the joke is usually on those who attempt to take this step. Arguably, the gold standard of the modern attempts to make Lincoln funny (by actually trying to give us a taste of what Lincolnian humor was like) remains Robert V. Barron's portrayal of Lincoln in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure--this movie has no depiction of the assassination. Barron's physical resemblance to Lincoln is good. However, instead of Lincoln's high pitched Western accent, we get the usual: a deep voice filled with gravitas. In any event, Lincoln borrowing from his Gettysburg Address to fit the circumstances of a high school history project takes us down what seems like it might be a serious path. Then, Lincoln's faces shows genuine amusement because he knows what is coming and after a carefully timed paused, bursts into an exaggerated gesture punctuated by the phrase "party on, dudes!" It was the late 1980s and the film was set in California, it made sense. The attempts to make the Lincoln assassination funny, on the other hand, are nonsensical.

Lincoln, Davis and the Beginning of the War

The presidencies of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were enveloped by a war of unprecedented scale in American history. The war consumed the lives of both men as they worked long hours and poured over even minute details of the massive struggle. Lincoln and Davis were adversaries working at cross purposes. Lincoln aimed at keeping the country intact by suppressing a rebellion while Davis sought to establish independence for the Confederacy. Obviously, the nature of this relationship merits Davis a place in talking about the memory of Lincoln. However, without looking at a dual biography of Lincoln and Davis or a more specialized work on the Civil War, Davis is largely missing from the Lincoln narrative. He is confined to a few predictable reference points in Lincoln biographies. Each of these instances is telling in how they frame Lincoln and how little they tell us about Davis.

One persistent literary image is Lincoln sinking into a chair in Richmond in what used to be Davis’ office in the Confederate White House. This is only a symbolic conquering of Davis. Lincoln’s goal was not to capture a physical capital but to force Confederate armies to surrender. In any event, Davis had escaped Richmond before its fall and was not captured until after Lincoln was assassinated. Another oft repeated Lincoln anecdote is related to the capture of Davis. In relating to General Grant that he was uninterested in having Davis in Federal possession, Lincoln told a story about an Irishman who had renounced liquor. The Irishman had ordered lemonade in a bar and let it be known that if brandy was stirred in his lemonade “unbeknownst” to himself he wouldn’t take offense. In the same way, if Davis could escape “unbeknownst” to Lincoln, he wouldn’t be upset. Again, this story tells us nothing about Davis, but shows us the familiar image of Lincoln the merciful. This image of Lincoln also plays a role in the mythmaking about how easygoing Lincoln was going to be in reuniting the country after the war if he had lived. In dealing with memory and the coming of the war in 1861, Davis’ role is important. As Davis was inaugurated first and secession started before Lincoln had official powers, he was reacting to the moves of his Southern counterpart.

Lincoln’s farewell address in Springfield happened on February 11, 1861. Jefferson Davis would be inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America seven days later. Lincoln would have to wait another two weeks for his own inauguration. Even if we are told that Davis was inaugurated while Lincoln was making his way East, Davis’ own farewell address to the Senate on January 21, 1861, is not often analyzed in Lincoln biographies. What does Davis speech contain?

Davis tells us in that speech that, as Mississippi has seceded he is (as a citizen of that State) “bound by her action” and must also depart. He notifies the packed house that Mississippians believed that they “are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us.” About the seceding States, Davis says “we but tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim our independence, and take the hazard.” Davis is not making a pretentious claim. His father and uncles fought against the British in the American Revolution. Davis’ older brothers were with Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. Davis himself had escorted the captured leader Black Hawk to Missouri during the Black Hawk War and later became a war hero at Buena Vista during the Mexican War. As the Secretary of War in the Pierce administration, Davis tried to modernize the weaponry and professionalize the fighting force Lincoln would inherit a few years later. There is no reason to believe Davis was being less than earnest about his own feelings about exercising the rights he had fought and bled for. He does not say anything about seceding to save the institution of slavery though Mississippi certainly did in its “Declaration of Causes which Induce and Justify Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.” The State Convention announced: “There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.” Davis did spell out this same sentiment in speaking of Lincoln and the Republicans on January 10 (the day after Mississippi seceded). “Your platform on which you elected your candidate, denies us equality. Your votes refuse to recognize our domestic institutions which pre-existed the formation of the Union—our property which was guarded by the Constitution.” In recalling these statements, more force is given to Lincoln’s words in Springfield: “I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington.”

By the time Lincoln addressed his well wishers in Illinois, seven states—all of them as convinced as Mississippi that Lincoln’s election meant slavery would be attacked—were already claiming to be out of the Union. Lincoln had to be exasperated at the incredulity of these states. He was anti-slavery to be sure, but was never an abolitionist. His nascent Republican Party was not an abolitionist organization. The party platform of 1860 reflected this fact. It only mentioned slavery in relation to the territories and the party’s interest in stopping slavery from spreading to the territories—certainly an anti-slavery position but not an abolitionist one. Lincoln had tried to reassure Southerners in his Cooper Union address in February of 1860 that while his party would continue to call slavery a wrong, Republicans were not in favor of rooting out the institution in the slave States. Lincoln did not blame Southerners for thinking that slavery was right and good, “but,” he said, “thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?” Lincoln then answered the interrogatory negatively. He was not about to yield now that seven State conventions decided to finally attempt the secession which Southerners had threatened to try for many years. As Lincoln saw it, he was the President of all the States which had cast their votes for President in 1860, even of six of the seceding States (South Carolina had no popular vote in 1860) which had refused to put his name on the ballot. While Lincoln won less than 40% of the popular vote, he had easily tallied more electoral votes than the other three candidates combined. Though he never used the phrase, Lincoln saw the Southern refusal to accept the results of the election as sour grapes (Davis in his First Inaugural noted that the States forming the Confederacy decided that the goals in the Preamble to the Constitution were not being met by as shown by their “peaceful appeal to the ballot-box”). Davis reached out to Lincoln in late February “animated by an earnest desire to unite and bind together our respective countries by friendly ties.” Lincoln would never acknowledge the existence of the Confederacy as a country, especially not in the various peace conference proposals during the war, and delivered an Inaugural Address which denounced secession but described the seven States in rebellion as “not enemies, but friends.”

Lincoln described secession as “the essence of anarchy” in his First Inaugural Address. Lincoln spoke not only of the Federal Union but of any government where a majority of its constituent society decides who will govern. In the case of the United States or in the case of the Confederacy which the Southerners sought to establish, when a minority refuses to participate in a political formation any longer because it dislikes the result of an election, the entity is destroyed if the majority which has fairly won the election lets the minority leave—such was Lincoln’s message and warning about the logic of secession. Lincoln toned down the originally drafted belligerent ending of his Inaugural: “shall it be peace or a sword?” while retaining the admonition that “You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.” The Confederate government ordered Beauregard to “reduce” Fort Sumter if it was not abandoned by Major Anderson. In the process of reducing it, the Confederacy fired the first shots, and in Lincoln’s retrospective words from the Second Inaugural Address, “the war came.” In remembering Lincoln and the start of the Civil War, we should not forget Davis. Even though Lincoln and Davis never met, they are inextricably bound together.

Emancipation & Reconstruction

I wrote about emancipation back in May and hinted about the continuance of slavery like conditions in the South for many years after the 13^th Amendment was passed. My focus in that post was on Lincoln’s move toward the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln had to wait to issue his proclamation until the right time in the war. An angle on black freedom which deserves more attention is the Confederate move in the direction of emancipation. Bruce Levine has recently written a concise but important and searching book on Confederate Emancipation. Levine details but does not explore the similarities of what the Confederates wanted from emancipation and what actually happened in terms of black freedom following the failure of Reconstruction. The four major figures in terms of plans for Confederate emancipation who Levine discusses are General Patrick R. Cleburne, Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin, General Robert E. Lee and President Jefferson Davis. These men rightly saw that what Lincoln and the Union proposed would be revolutionary for the Southern society they enjoyed. In reaction to this, Cleburne, Benjamin, Lee and Davis attempted a counterrevolution by trying to create a scheme for having both black freedom and black subjugation at the same time. It is worth quoting Levine’s description of the Confederate conception of the Southern future at length.

“They hoped to win black cooperation with an offer of freedom. But the freedom they expected to actually grant would be severely circumscribed. The former slaves would cease to be the property of individual masters. They would gain the legal rights to marry, to learn to read, to attend church, to own property, and to sign contracts. But they would receive no land at the point of emancipation. To survive, therefore, they would have to return to the white landowners and work for them. And to make certain that they did so and that they worked intensively, for long hours, and in return for only a bare subsistence, the Confederate government and the individual southern states and locales would (as Prof. Frederick A. Porcher put it) ‘make statutes for the regulation of labour.’ And the former slaves would be unable to block or change those or any other statutes because they would also lack any important political rights, including the rights to vote and hold office.” (p. 154).

As we take each of these things in turn, we should remember that Reconstruction spanned only the terms of Presidents Johnson and Grant, both of whom had no commitment to the more radical aspects of Lincoln’s vision of what America should be about. The only one of the Civil War Amendments which Andrew Johnson approved of was the 13^th Amendment which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude (“except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”, my emphasis). His opposition to the 14^th and 15^th Amendments, along with everything else which the Radical Republicans in Congress tried, got Johnson impeached and nearly removed from office. In the fall of 1865, Johnson revoked General Sherman’s Special Field Orders No. 15 which confiscated land in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida along the Atlantic coast and had it set aside in 40 acre blocks for freedmen and their families. This order is the likely origin of the famous “40 acres and a mule” phrase. Lincoln had approved this move by Sherman in the spring of 1865. Johnson vetoed bills to renew and strengthen the Freedmen’s Bureau. He also vetoed the Civil Rights Act (1866), the First Reconstruction Act, the Second Reconstruction Act, and so on. Johnson not coincidentally had more of his vetoes overridden than any other President. In the Freedman’s Bureau veto Johnson states: “The Congress of the United States has never, heretofore, thought itself competent to establish asylums beyond the limits of the District of Columbia, except for the benefit of our disabled soldiers and sailors. It has never founded schools for any class of our own people, not even for the orphans of those who have fallen in the defence of the Union, but has left the care of their education to the much more competent and efficient control of the States, of communities, of private associations, and of individuals” (my emphasis). Recall the last line of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address: “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 lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations” (my emphasis). Without invoking Lincoln directly, Johnson is rejecting the sweeping social changes implied in Lincoln’s words, and more importantly, in the bill the Congress had drawn up. Johnson, despite being the only Southern Senator to oppose secession, showed his alliance with the Confederate vision when it came to black political rights. Johnson said to an African American delegation which included Frederick Douglass that giving suffrage to blacks would lead to a race war ending in “the extermination of one or the other [race].” It can be seen from the above details that Johnson’s claim in the Freedmen’s Bureau veto that “I have, with Congress, the strongest desire to secure to the freedmen the full enjoyment of their freedom and their property and their entire independence and equality in making contracts for their labor” is shown to be hollow, which is exactly the lack of commitment the former Confederates needed to enact their program.

Johnson’s successor, US Grant, was not a racist and was willing to correct the “wrong” of blacks being denied their civil rights. After having said that in his Second Inaugural Address (1873) Grant continued, “Social equality is not a subject to be legislated upon, nor shall I ask that anything be done to advance the social status of the colored man, except to give him a fair chance to develop what there is good in him, give him access to the schools, and when he travels let him feel assured that his conduct will regulate the treatment and fare he will receive.” In other words, nothing was to be done about the labor conditions of the South. Most African Americans in the South had little choice but to return to work for their former masters under an exploitative situation which was similar to slavery. Grant also declared in this Address that all of the “States lately at war with the General Government are now happily rehabilitated” which meant the end of “Executive control” in those States. As soon as a State could be “redeemed” by Southern Democrats, the business of writing Jim Crow laws could begin. By the time Rutherford B. Hayes’ took office in 1877, Federal troops only remained in Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida (3 of the States whose electoral votes were in dispute and also whose votes ultimately got Hayes elected). After the removal of these troops, Republican governments in all three states dissipated and Reconstruction ended unfinished.

This result, a failed Reconstruction, did not lead to “a new birth of freedom” as Lincoln had put it in his Gettysburg Address. The outright hostility or simple disinterest in the project of Reconstruction from Johnson and Grant and the acquiescence by Hayes on the end of Reconstruction have had a lasting impact on what Lincoln described as the “leading object” of government: “to elevate the condition of men---to lift artificial weights from all shoulders---to clear the paths of laudable pursuit to all---to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.” It was not obscure figures who advocated emancipation within the Confederacy—it hardly needs to be said however that emancipation was not a popular position to take. Their vision for the South ought to have been clear to Johnson, Grant and Hayes. Though the Confederates did not win their independence or preserve chattel slavery, losing the Civil War and winning the battle over Reconstruction led to a white supremacist Southern home rule which lasted nearly a century. Although it is impossible to determine exactly what course of action Lincoln would have taken on Reconstruction had he lived, Lincoln’s successors distanced themselves from his views which would have aided the integration of the Republic.

The Presidents' Lincoln

From Andrew Johnson’s assumption of the presidency following Lincoln’s death to Obama taking office, there have been 27 US Presidents. That is a time span of 144 years and only three other Presidents became victims of assassination (Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy). However, no other President besides Lincoln has had to deal with a section of the country trying to establish its independence by breaking up the Union. Presidents, much like other Americans since Lincoln’s assassination, have tried to find ways to use the Lincoln memory.

Although this was not always the case, contemporary politicians and especially Presidents (and executive hopefuls) face the problem of “getting right with Lincoln,” to use David Donald’s phrase. Reviewing the public papers of US Presidents yields the curious result that Lincoln’s name is rarely invoked until the turn of the 20^th century. An interesting figure among the Presidents is Rutherford B. Hayes, who judging by his Diary and Letters, was a Lincoln admirer. Yet, in his public papers Lincoln is only named twice in veto messages. It is easy to guess why Hayes would shy away from Lincoln in public documents when we consider the controversial nature of Hayes’ election in 1876 which earned him the nickname Rutherfraud B. Hayes from Democrats.

The modern use of Lincoln by US Presidents often descends into banal repetition of a few of Lincoln’s words out of context. John F. Kennedy was fond of saying (at nearly every campaign stop in 1960) that the issue of the day was “whether the world will exist half slave and half free.” Kennedy of course was not merely attempting to show that he could rhetorically fight the Cold War with more of the hyperbole which categorized that era than could Nixon. After the election was over Kennedy would dangerously act (from the Bay of Pigs to the Cuban Missile Crisis to Vietnam) as President as if the world was actually at risk of enslavement by the Soviet Union. After all, Kennedy did say in his 1961 Inaugural Address that “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty”. At a series of fundraisers in 1975, Gerald Ford continually cited Lincoln’s “Fragment on Government.” Before Ford used it, the fragment was one of Eisenhower’s favorite references. Specifically, these Republican Presidents were fond of the line: “The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities”. That Lincoln also said in the “Fragment” that “pauperism” was one the things which fell under the “desirable things” a government should take care of because it was something that “the individuals of a people can not do, or can not well do, for themselves” was lost on both Eisenhower and Ford, but obviously not only on them. George H.W. Bush began saying in 1991 that we should take after Lincoln and “think anew.” Yet, in Lincoln’s Second Annual Message where the phrase “think anew” comes from, he was begging the nation in 1862 to think and act “anew” as the situation the country faced was novel. Lincoln had laid out a plan for compensated emancipation in the message as a way to foreshorten the war and “a means, not in exclusion of, but additional to, all others for restoring and preserving the national authority throughout the union.” Bush was not talking about anything so desperate. He was just upset with the Democratic Party’s control of Congress and the members of the Democratic Party whom he described in Orwellian terms as “old thinkers.” Considering that Francis Fukuyama penned his “End of History” essay (later a book) in Bush’s State Department, Bush invoking Lincoln’s Second Annual Message becomes particularly ironic when we consider its more famous phrase: “we cannot escape history.”

Having made himself politically in Illinois, President Obama could not help but employ the Lincoln memory—historians would take up the task of connecting Obama and Lincoln in any event. Even before Obama became a candidate for the Democratic nomination, he wrote about Lincoln and connected himself to the 16^th President. Based on the Obama Presidency so far it does not seem as if he will invoke the memory of Lincoln any less than his predecessor, George W. Bush. After the Thanksgiving pardon of the turkey Courage, Obama joins Bush in carrying out a tradition first enacted by Truman, or, was it Lincoln who started the practice by pardoning his son’s turkey which later showed up in 1864 at the polls? Clinton gave credit to both Presidents (even though Truman never pardoned a turkey). The Lincoln stories are anecdotal and seem to originate in Noah Brooks’ article in The Century magazine. That the turkey pardoning practice appears to be no older than Bush Sr. who granted one in 1989, Bush Jr. stuck to the Lincoln story in 2001. Lincoln did however issue a Proclamation of Thanksgiving which fits in with the current time frame of the national holiday. It was therefore inescapable that Obama mention it, and the context of the Civil War, in his own Proclamation.

Writing About Lincoln

How does one begin writing about Lincoln? Maybe a topic comes up involving Lincoln or a preconceived notion about him gets indulged through writing. Perhaps the author stumbles into the project by accident. Some people are asked specifically to write about Lincoln for some particular purpose. Ultimately all of these reasons and more could start one along in the process of writing about Lincoln. I started writing this blog due to a request, or rather a demand, from a friend. Since I was going to be expected to update the blog I decided I might as well try to further my dissertation research with topics for the blog on the general theme of my project: Lincoln and memory. It is with this sense of commemoration in mind that I am interested in what other people write about Lincoln.

Everyone who writes about Lincoln is engaging in a project of collective memory. Obviously no one is left alive now who knew Lincoln or knew somebody who knew Lincoln for that matter. Therefore, other memories have to be relied upon to say something about Lincoln today. Lincoln was a very personal man who did not keep a diary and gave us minimal insight into his life through his letters. In other words, relying solely on the Lincoln writings in the Collected Works and using no biographical works about Lincoln would make it extremely difficult to piece together the world in which Lincoln lived at any point in his life. Whenever we utilize these secondary sources the problem of unreliable information appears. There are a great many spurious Lincoln quotes floating around to say the least.

Even when dealing with reputable characters, there is the issue of only getting one side of the story or having words put into Lincoln’s mouth. For instance, in Frederick Douglass’ third autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), he describes a meeting with Lincoln at the White House after Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address has been delivered. Douglass reports Lincoln as saying “Douglass; there is no man in the country whose opinion I value more than yours. I want to know what you think of it?” Douglass responded, “Mr. Lincoln, that was a sacred effort.” A jovial Lincoln replies “I’m glad you liked it!” If one peruses the Lincoln Log entry for March 4, 1865, Douglass is not mentioned unless we consider him included in the number of the 6,000 persons Lincoln shook hands with. This particular encounter would not have been the first time these two men, these two friends, had met at the White House. We know how Lincoln felt about the speech. He wrote to Thurlow Weed on March 15, 1865 that he expected the speech “will wear as well as --- perhaps better than --- any thing I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular.” There is no mention by Lincoln of Douglass’ “sacred effort” remark in gauging the perception of the speech. The context of the symbolic use of the Lincoln meeting in the East Room in Douglass’ autobiography (African Americans had previously not been allowed to view the Inaugural Address much less visit a President at the post-Inaugural ball and discuss the speech) is more important than Lincoln’s flippant reply, “I’m glad you liked it!”

Lincoln’s death was 144 years ago yet people still write about the “real” Lincoln—a Google search of “the real Lincoln” I did recently returned over 26 million results. If all of this time has passed and the genuine Lincoln has not been discovered, why should we believe that a new book or article will uncover the actual Lincoln which has been ostensibly out of our grasp? Putting the “real” or the “true” Lincoln in the title of one’s writing about Lincoln is audacious at best, foolhardy at worst. Authors making use of such titles are usually out to “set the facts straight” or separate “the myths from reality” or any number of other such stock phrases. Someone writing in this mood such as Thomas DiLorenzo typically has something out for Lincoln, those who write about Lincoln, or both. His second book about Lincoln, Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe, even begins with a section entitled “Challenging the Gatekeepers.” Such gatekeepers, DiLorenzo claims, are “the Lincoln cult” who, whether they are on the political left (a dubious idea in itself that the United States has one of these) or right, “use the Lincoln mythology to advocate a bigger, more centralized, and more interventionist central government for one reason or another.” Seeking a reevaluation of Lincoln’s legacy as DiLorenzo seems to want is fine in itself, but name calling is no way to begin an honest debate. We are also able to see that the “real” Lincoln to be discussed is only a Lincoln which fits in with the author’s predetermined standpoint—which is a terrible way to write no matter what one’s interests are. Any notions about discovering the “real” Lincoln at this stage of American history should be put to rest. If no one has done it by now, it’s not going to happen.

There is a Lincoln (or I should say Lincolns) that most people do not know, but this is not the “real” Lincoln either, but simply more of Lincoln than is typically written about. From what I can gather, Lincoln historians are well aware of how Lincoln handled the Sioux uprising in Minnesota in 1862—Lincoln signed the execution order of 38 Santee Sioux men (the largest mass execution by the US government in its history), pardoned 265 other Santee men, and allowed the removal of the Sioux and the Winnebago (the latter were not involved with the uprising) from Minnesota. Lincoln historians are reluctant to discuss this Lincoln in their writings. There remains only one book on Lincoln and his Indian policy, David A. Nichols’ Lincoln and the Indians. Lincoln’s service in the Black Hawk War (1832), which involved no actual fighting, or the fact that Lincoln’s grandfather was killed by Indians is hard to leave out of Lincoln biographies and is easy to track down. The Lincoln who advocated colonization for African Americans has been well documented by historians, along with the crucial fact that he changed his mind about this policy. Although Lincoln as a lawyer came down on the side of black freedom in a case of an attempt to sell a black woman in Bailey v. Cromwell, an unfamiliar Lincoln is the lawyer who six years later defended a slave owner in the Matson case. Nevertheless, this too is a Lincoln that the general public would struggle to reconcile with the popular image of “The Great Emancipator.” One of the difficulties of writing anything trying to approach a comprehensive Lincoln is that the Lincoln who emerges is a thoroughly complex man who is unable to be confined in the simplistic portrayals most people have been subjected to. Another hurdle to writing about Lincoln is a deadline. I’ll try hard not to come up against it next month.

Forging Lincoln

If we leave out the fraudulent Lincoln we are left with an incomplete image of the memory of Lincoln. It matters far less that Lincoln never said “you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all the people all the time,” than it matters that people believe that he did (this quote is also attributed to P.T. Barnum on occasion). Likewise, the public wants to believe that Lincoln loved Ann Rutledge and wants to know the details. Carl Sandburg, who believed that Lincoln uttered the quote about fooling people, also played a prominent role in promoting the fictional aspects of the relationship in his huge seller, The Prairie Years (1926).

Sometimes the forging of the Lincoln memory involves actual forgery. Sandburg was unfortunately involved with the Wilma Minor affair which resulted in a big embarrassment for Atlantic Monthly. Sandburg initially believed that Wilma Minor had turned up lost Lincoln love letters to and from Rutledge because Sandburg wanted to believe in love and refused to use a critical eye toward the letters. It was only after the Lincoln scholar Paul Angle exposed Minor’s Lincoln letters as nothing more than a hoax that Sandburg changed his mind.

While there was monetary compensation for Minor’s fraud, she seems to have been driven by a want of fame. Other forgers of the Lincoln memory were after fortune. Producing Lincoln letters was a potential source of riches but trying to forge the Lincoln signature was an easier way to try to make money.

Lincoln memorabilia hunting started even before he became President. Henry Rankin, who studied in the Lincoln and Herndon Law Offices in Springfield, asked Lincoln for an autograph in 1858.

It is this signature, either A. Lincoln or Abraham Lincoln that is so prized by collectors and worth so much. Even in Lincoln’s Collected Works it is possible to find notes under entries such as this one from an endorsement: “close and signature have been cut off but copied below in pencil, presumably by the autograph collector.”

It was therefore very tempting for con artists to try their hand at Lincoln’s signature and affix it to items of dubious provenance in order to make some quick cash off of unsuspecting admirers of the 16^th President. The impetus for this interest in any kind of Lincoln memorabilia was the assassination of Lincoln which made him into a national martyr. Examples of Lincoln mementos range from the macabre (a sliver of a bloody pillow case slip) to the mundane (Lincoln’s hairbrush-although this item is very improbable since Lincoln’s hair was rarely in order). There a few Lincoln forgers who became infamous such as Charles Weisberg, aka, The Baron; Henry Woodhouse, and the team of Harry Sickles and Eugene Field II. Their handiwork can still be found today. One item, a book of 19^th century sheet music, which was part of Sickles and Field’s very large and lucrative counterfeiting operation appeared on PBS’ History Detectives (which uses the great Elvis Costello song above for a theme song).

The Sickles and Field scam in the 1930s involved Mary Todd Lincoln’s former coachman, William P. Brown and a Muskegon County Michigan notary public, Frank Thatcher. Sickles and Field had Brown autograph 19^th century books and maps. Thatcher’s role was to attest that Brown’s signature was genuine and attach his notary seal. After acquiring this semblance of legitimacy, Lincoln’s signature, either Abraham Lincoln or A. Lincoln was added by Sickles. Thus, on the face of it, any of these particular items appeared to be Lincoln’s former possessions. Brown was most likely unaware of the intentions of the men as a newspaper article noting that he had been the last person alive employed by the Lincoln’s had appeared in 1931 and brought him public attention as a result. Similarly, Thatcher only thought he was certifying the authenticity of Brown’s signature. Sickles and Field also created forgeries utilizing the signature of famous personages such as Mark Twain and Theodore Roosevelt, among others. Unlike the aforementioned forger Charles Weisberg who was arrested and died in prison, Sickles and Field never even drew a formal charge for their fraudulent products.

One could be cynical about the people who were fleeced by Sickles and Field or other forgers and say with Dave Hannum (not P.T. Barnum who was sued by Hannum over the authenticity of the Cardiff Giant), “There’s a sucker born every minute.” It is however more important to ask what the commodification of the Lincoln memory says about Americans despite the fact that forgeries and replicas mistaken for the genuine article are in existence. What does the inclusion of forgeries in private collections and Lincoln libraries tell us about the forging of the Lincoln memory? The continued existence of private Lincoln memorabilia collections along with Lincoln letters fetching six figures on the auction block suggest that Lincoln artifacts retain a strong interest to this day. It is also surprising to me that there is an apparent dearth of fraudulent Lincoln productions showing up from time to time in light of how much Lincoln items sell for.

Lincoln at the Movies, Lincoln on TV

Motion pictures have not been around for a very long time but they have come a long way since Lumière’s “Exiting the Factory” (1895). Lincoln’s image would appear on film for the first time in 1901 in an Edison Film Company production called The Martyred Presidents which shows a female mourner at an altar upon which the images of all the assassinated Presidents up to that time (Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley) appear in turn—then it gets strange for the last few seconds where a figure is begging for something before a statue of Justice. The Edison Film Company would also be the first to use Lincoln’s image in a drama, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903). Since the first use of Lincoln in 1901, according to Mark S. Reinhart’s research, Lincoln has been a character in “at least 300 productions.”

Despite that sizeable number, Lincoln has not appeared as the main character very often since the 1940s. The next film slotted to feature Lincoln is Stephen Spielberg’s much delayed (now due out 2011) Lincoln biographical film which is set to star Liam Neeson as Lincoln. Over the years Lincoln has been played on screen by famous actors such as Henry Fonda (Young Mr. Lincoln-1939), Raymond Massey (Abe Lincoln in Illinois-1940; The Day Lincoln Was Shot-1959; How the West Was Won-1961), and Sam Waterston (Gore Vidal’s Lincoln-1988), singer/actors such as Kris Kristofferson (Tad-1995) and also by Lincoln impersonators such as Charles Brame (Happy Gilmore-1996; Zoolander-2001; The Man Who Invented the Moon-2003). The quality of presentation in terms of resemblance to Lincoln and accuracy of the narrative of Lincoln on screen varies widely of course. The best hope on both elements is still the documentary form and there have been two very good ones this year, PBS' Looking for Lincoln and KET's Lincoln: I, too, am a Kentuckian.

It is impossible to say for certain what Lincoln would have thought about his depiction as Snake Plissken in the picture above this post, but Lincoln had seen worse representations of himself in his day. The defaced currency is typical of the nature of how Lincoln is most often seen in contemporary American society, which is to say, not seriously. Lincoln appears much more often on television than in film. It seems that Lincoln always comes up for humorous effect suddenly and then disappears in these TV sightings, such as this recent Family Guy episode. Professional historians might balk at the inaccuracies of the short scene at Ford’s Theatre in the brief clip from the cartoon show. However, to ignore or decry such portrayals of Lincoln based on the false information contained within them misses the point—these events are meant to be entertaining. Beyond that, it might be important to ask why the silly Lincoln gets laughs or why writers would even imagine that viewers would crack up at seeing Lincoln. Is it because most Americans carry around an image of a sober, albeit simplistic (since he loved to tell jokes and humorous stories), Lincoln? And further, perhaps the preformed ideas about the serious Lincoln not only open up the contrast for comedic purposes but also show that Lincoln’s prestige is safe, even if it is not high as it once was.

New Format-Monthly Updates

Due to time constraints (teaching class, research, editing a book project, etc.), I will now officially only be updating this blog once a month, although I will post more than once per month if spare time can be found. This doesn't count as the update for this month--I'm working on that post. In the meantime, take a look at this Chicago Tribune article on Lincoln memory which asks: what would Lincoln say about race today?

Lincoln's 4th of July Message and the Declaration of Independence

Not July 2^nd when independence was voted for (probably to the chagrin of John Adams) nor August 2^nd when the Declaration was signed, but July 4^th (the date the Declaration was approved) is the day that the United States celebrates its independence from Great Britain.

Therefore, in part because of the symbolic importance of the day and the because of the opportunity to have a special session of Congress approve measures already taken after the fact, it was on July 4 of 1861 that Lincoln’s message to Congress occurred. In describing secession as a “farcical pretense,” Lincoln appealed to the Declaration, “the good old one, penned by Jefferson” over the declarations of the Southern “adversaries.” Lincoln asked why the Southerners had not included the words “all men are created equal.” For the answer he needed to look no further than his friend Alexander H. Stephens who had become the Vice President of the Confederacy.

Stephens in his “Cornerstone Speech” on March 21, 1861, said about the Constitution of the Confederate States that it “had put to 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.” Stephens noted that Thomas Jefferson had been right that the question of slavery would unmake the Union but he was wrong in believing “that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically.” Any thoughts during the Founding or after it that slavery might somehow pass from existence in the United States were wrong said Stephens because “[t]hey rested on the assumption of the equality of the races.” The Confederate government on the contrary was “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.” According to Stephens this inequality was a “great physical, philosophical and moral truth.”

Stephens had provided Lincoln with as direct a statement as one could wish for to answer his query and yet Lincoln did not make reference to the speech. In fact, as Frederick Douglass rightly notes, the July 4^th message of Lincoln does not speak of slavery. Douglas Wilson states that, as Douglass would understand later, a critical reaction to the lack of antislavery language in the message is exactly what Lincoln sought to provoke. Douglass would much more forcefully say the words which Lincoln would reserve for the Second Inaugural, namely, that slavery was the cause of the war. Whereas Lincoln qualified his statement with “somehow”, Douglass in 1861 said “[e]very reflecting man knows, and knows full well, that the real source and centre of the treason, rebellion and bloodshed under which the country is now staggering as if to its fall, is slavery. Every one knows that this is a slaveholder’s rebellion, and nothing else.” This is not to say Douglass needed a Lincoln message to speak out against the “self-deception” that slavery was not to blame for the war. In his Douglass’ Monthly in June Douglass declared that the “very stomach of this rebellion is the Negro in the condition of a slave. Arrest that hoe in the hands of the Negro, and you smith the rebellion in the very seat of its life.”

The Declaration of Independence, like Lincoln’s message, does not mention slavery. The reason for the omission in the Declaration is because Jefferson was overruled by his fellow slave holders in the Congress and the passages against slavery (including the description of slavery as “War against human Nature itself”) were cut. Nevertheless, it was the Declaration without mention of slavery which Lincoln would elevate to Constitutional status in the Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” In closing the Gettysburg Address Lincoln refined words from his July 4^th message (“government of the people, by the same people”) into his exhortation “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.” Lincoln also used the Declaration in his message to run a connecting thread through the Union. From 1776 to the present, the Union was perpetual, the states united, said Lincoln. No “sophism” or “drugging the public mind” of the South could change that fact.

Unlike the “same Bible” which was read and “same God” who was prayed to and invoked for aid by the North and the South, July 4^th and the Declaration of Independence which is commemorated on that the day was emptied of content for the Confederacy as much as for the Great Republic of Rough and Ready. Happy birthday, USA!