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!

Cheesy Lincoln

Photo copyright of Reuters/Ray Stubblebine

As a patriotic display of one of the United States’ “big cheeses” (sponsored by Cheez-It), Lincoln was sculpted in cheese by cheesecarver Troy Landwehr. This is the second time of three possible years that Lincoln (therefore the biggest cheese?) has been carved out of cheese by Landwehr. In 2007, he sculpted a Mount Rushmore out of a 700 pound block of Land o’ Lakes brand cheddar cheese. That sculpture met its end in Oklahoma as snack cubes.

This years’ Lincoln cheese sculpture (pictured above) doesn’t share the spotlight with any other Presidents. At 6-feet, 8 inches, it is slightly larger than life. However, this sculpture is just another massive block of cheese depicting Lincoln fated for consumption, eventually. In the meantime, the cheese sculpture is on display and consumers of the Lincoln image will have to settle for Cheez-It snack crackers in stores. The Kellogg’s press release (parent company of Cheez-It) shows the unabashed corporate exploitation of the Lincoln memory: “Cheez-It crackers bring the big cheese taste baked into each little bite, so it seems fitting for the brand to tip our hat this year to our nation's 'biggest' president during his bicentennial year.”

Corporate use of Lincoln to make a buck is not new. Lincoln log toys were created in 1916 and are still sold today. Lincoln Motors became the company that Presidents from FDR to Bush Sr. turned to for limousines. The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company (now Lincoln Financial Group) opened in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1905 using, with permission from Robert Todd Lincoln, Lincoln’s likeness. The company’s slogan was “Its name indicates its Character.” A young frontiersman Lincoln was depicted in a statue outside the Fort Wayne office. The company did establish a Lincoln museum in Fort Wayne which they closed after 77 years last June citing poor attendance. One can only wonder if Robert Lincoln would be ok with the interactive Subway sandwich ads from last year for their $5 footlong sandwiches featuring “urban” Lincoln asking potential customers to send out “5 dolla hollas” to friends. See below.

This food hawking Lincoln, whether it is coming from Cheez-It or Subway, is devoid of any semblance of seriousness about the 16^th President. Barry Schwartz will argue that Lincoln’s presentation in advertising is more proof that Americans do not respect greatness or heroes. However, the use of Lincoln by these companies surely demonstrates that they think Lincoln resonates well enough to sell products. And, perhaps Lincoln’s national stature is so well founded that there’s nothing to worry about from such advertising among those persons serious enough to care about the Lincoln legacy.

Louisville's Lincoln

Photo by Kylene Lloyd, The Courier-Journal

On June 4, 2009, the city of Louisville, Kentucky unveiled a new Lincoln statue at its Waterfront Park. Dan Kelly a Republican State Senator for Springfield (Kentucky) and co-chair of the Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission had an idea for a statue in order to “reclaim our Lincoln heritage.” This new Lincoln monument is the outcome of that initial idea. Lincoln was born in Kentucky of course, a fact which is reflected in the stylized log cabin which is the Commonwealth’s Bicentennial logo. Louisville already had another link to the Lincoln memory in the Farmington Historical Plantation (which was a hemp plantation fueled by slave labor) where Lincoln visited his good friend Joshua Speed for three weeks in 1841.

Famous Louisville resident Muhammad Ali and Kentucky Colonel (Lincoln is not even a posthumous Kentucky Colonel for some reason but he did visit their 2008 BBQ, was on hand at the sunset dedication ceremony. Ali also talked about Lincoln’s “ideas of unity, justice and equality” with Boys and Girls Club students at his Ali Center before the unveiling. Ali’s name at birth, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., represents another Lincoln connection. Cassius Marcellus Clay (1810-1903), whom Ali and his father Clay, Sr. were named for, was a Kentucky emancipationist and journalist who served three terms in the Kentucky General Assembly and was a founding member of the Republican Party. Cassius Clay was also related to Senator Henry Clay, Lincoln’s “beau ideal of a statesman.” Cassius Clay was appointed Minister to Russia in 1861 by Lincoln and witnessed Tsar Alexander’s II edict which emancipated the serfs. Clay was recalled from Russia in 1862 and offered a generalship in order to get the corrupt Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, out of the country as Minister to Russia. Clay made a speech in Washington when he returned saying that he would not “draw a sword to keep the chains upon another fellow-being” and assured Lincoln that Kentucky would not secede if emancipation of the slaves was announced (Clay was sent back to Russia in 1863 and later played a role in the purchase of Alaska). Lincoln did issue his preliminary proclamation after the battle of Antietam.

The monument is the work of Kentucky sculptor Ed Hamilton. Hamilton has depicted Lincoln in the statue clean shaven as he would have appeared around the time of the visit to the Speed plantation. An 18,000 pound, but approachable (especially by children climbing), Lincoln holds a law book and sits on a 22,000 pound rock. Hamilton also created 4 bas-relief panels to accompany the statue. One panel shows Lincoln as a shirtless muscled youth with an ax and a younger Lincoln reading beside the fireplace. Another panel depicts chained and naked slaves—a scene Lincoln had witnessed on a steamboat with Speed on the way from Louisville to St. Louis in 1841 (though Lincoln never described the slaves as naked). A third panel illustrates the division of the Union with a battle scene and Lincoln consoling a crying woman and on the other side of a divided line, a woman holding a soldier who is probably dead. The final panel places Lincoln inside a room at the Speed plantation into which a slave can be seen entering with a tray of refreshments. The panels and Lincoln statue are surrounded by amphitheatre seats with words of Lincoln (all written well after 1841) inscribed such as “with malice toward none, with charity for all” (Second Inaugural Address, 1865); “as I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master” (fragment on Democracy, undated but assigned to 1858 in the Collected Works); and “I too, am a Kentuckian” (undelievered speech to Kentuckians, 1861).

The commemoration of Lincoln found in the monument and the celebratory unveiling and press coverage in Louisville’s The Courier-Journal aim at the words of Lincoln which were not used (despite the fact that he said them to a sitting Kentucky Governor in 1864): “I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think, and feel.”.

However, by focusing on the 1841 steamboat trip and stay at Speed’s plantation, the presentation of the Lincoln memory on slavery in Louisville is beset by difficulties. Lincoln’s stay on the Speed plantation and witnessing slavery first hand “haunted Lincoln and shaped his views” according to the Courier-Journal. This statement is followed by an 1855 quote from a Lincoln letter to Joshua Speed which is clipped in such a way that the sight of slaves, “ a continual torment”, is ostensibly about the stay at the plantation even though it is not. The “continual torment” which Lincoln writes Speed about was the sight of slaves on the steamboat. Given the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, tensions over slavery’s expansion were growing daily. Lincoln and many other Northerners had to worry because the Missouri Compromise of 1820 had been abrogated by the Compromise of 1850 which had started to fall apart upon passage. Yet, in 1855, Lincoln only sought to restore the 1850 compromise and oppose Kansas’ entry into the Union as a slave-state (the ‘civil war’ in Kansas, as Lincoln called it in 1859, known as Bleeding Kansas had just started by the time of his letter to Speed). “Naturally anti-slavery” or not, Lincoln likely thought he was expressing the majority opinion of the North when he told Speed: “You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the constitution and the union.” In other words, Lincoln at this time was only opposed to spread of slavery and was not going to agitate Southerners and a good deal of Northerners by advocating emancipation.

But back to the “continual torment” for a moment. This was certainly new sentiment from Lincoln that had developed the more he thought about slavery. In 1841 not long after the steamboat trip, Lincoln wrote in a careless digression in a letter Speed’s half-sister: “Nothing of interest happened during the passage, except the vexatious delays occasioned by the sand bars be thought interesting. By the way, a fine example was presented on board the boat for contemplating the effect of the condition upon human happiness. A gentleman had purchased twelve negroes in different parts of Kentucky and was taking them to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six together. A small iron clevis was around the left wrist of each, and this fastened to the main chain by a shorter one at a convenient distance from, the others; so that the negroes were strung together precisely like so many fish upon a trot-line. In this condition they were being separated forever from the scenes of their childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, and many of them, from their wives and children, and going into perpetual slavery where the lash of the master is proverbially more ruthless and unrelenting than any other where; and yet admit all these distressing circumstances, as we would think them, they were the most cheerful and apparently happy creatures on board. One, whose offence for which he had been sold was an over-fondness for his wife, played the fiddle almost continually; and the others danced, sung, cracked jokes, and played various games with cards from day to day. How true is it that ‘God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb’, or in other words, that He renders the worst of human conditions tolerable, while He permits the best, to be nothing better than tolerable.”

By selecting certain writings of Lincoln to read dramatically and having a 50 piece orchestra perform Aaron Copeland’s Lincoln Portrait, Louisville and the Commonwealth of Kentucky wanted the “naturally anti-slavery” Lincoln to claim for their heritage while presenting him more like he had been Cassius Clay. It is not reported in the Courier-Journal whether Muhammad Ali talked about why he and his father were originally named for Clay and not Lincoln.

Lincoln and the "Living Relics"

Image copyright of Wisconsin Historical Society.

Lincoln was seen by many as a secular saint and martyr for the nation following his assassination on Good Friday. It is not surprising then that his personal effects are sometimes seen as or described as relics. In April when Dr. John Sotos wanted to perform a DNA test (to determine whether Lincoln was dying of a rare cancer) on a piece of the pillow Lincoln bled and died on which is housed at the Grand Army of the Republic Museum in Philadelphia, Temple University professor Andy Waskie proclaimed: “This is the Shroud of Turin of Civil War history.” One difference between Lincoln relics and Christian ones is that the selling of Lincoln relics is not forbidden. And, Lincoln relics often claim high prices. However, it is the interesting phenomenon of living Lincoln relics which is worth looking at in more detail.

In his book, Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory, Barry Schwartz described a scene at a 1909 Lincoln Day dinner held by the Chicago Women’s Press League where one of these “living relics” appeared. U.S. Grant’s son, General Frederick Dent Grant, showed up and the toastmistress accidentally called him by his father’s name. The elder Grant had died in 1885 but somehow the name, forever connected to Lincoln because of the Civil War, caused quite a stir. Unlike one of Grant’s other sons, Jesse Root Grant, Frederick Grant had never met Lincoln. In any event, the visage of Grant’s son excited the women and one declared “Why, she might almost as well have introduced Lincoln!” Frederick Grant could not measure up to the stature of his famous father, but being alive and in the room was enough for him to become a medium for the commemoration of Lincoln himself by the women.

Another son, in this case one of Lincoln’s own, disappointed those looking to witness something of the President in him. Ida Tarbell interviewed Robert Todd Lincoln in 1895. Looking him over from head to toe, she found no Abraham Lincoln in him. Robert Lincoln was “all Todd.” Perhaps she should not have been surprised by this lack of resemblance. In 1860 while Lincoln was making speeches in the East he went to visit his son Robert at Philips Exeter Academy. Robert (Bob as the boys called him) was a “very popular with the girls of the town as well as the boys” and a ‘good dresser’—not exactly an assessment which would apply to Abraham Lincoln. Robert’s father in contrast with his son made a “disappointing appearance” which was only forgotten after Abraham Lincoln settled into his speech. Robert’s father was then praised and meeting him was deemed a great honor. A note about my source of this event: he was a living relic himself. Marshall S. Snow, for several years he acted as chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, was one of Robert’s classmates in attendance that night in 1860. He shook Lincoln’s hand and always thought of the pre-bearded Lincoln. Snow had also read the Gettysburg Address and the Bixby letter with great care. Snow obviously offered the Magazine of History a compelling reminiscence for the commemoration of the Centennial of Lincoln’s birth.

But what is it about these living relics, themselves usually unremarkable characters, that had a purchase on the minds of those who encountered them? Was the country not ready to let go of any tangible living nexus to Lincoln? I have no answer for these questions. There’s no rational reason I can think of for Nelson Rockefeller (then Governor of New York) to say (several times) in 1963 after meeting a 114 year old man who had shaken Lincoln’s hand, “I can’t get over the fact that I’ve actually shaken the hand that shook hands with Abraham Lincoln.” Nor does a good story stand in the way of those who present vicarious access to the Lincoln memory. The headline of the Baraboo Evening News above about the “Celebrated Haskins Brothers” is incorrect. It was Simon Cameron (Lincoln’s Secretary of War) who suggested that the triplets be named after himself, Gideon Welles (Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy) and Lincoln to the father, Leonard Haskins.

Even when the authenticity of the narrative of a living relic is challenged, sometimes Lincoln scholars throw caution to the wind as Doris Kearns Goodwin does with Addison Proctor whom she cites as a source on the 1860 Republican Convention in her Team of Rivals. Proctor claimed to be the youngest delegate to attend that convention which nominated Lincoln for President and by 1911, he felt he was the only delegate still living. His status as a delegate was probably not the whole reason why he was invited to give speeches. Proctor said that the Kentucky Senator Cassius M. Clay was leader of the Kentucky delegation and gave an unforgettable speech (which Proctor could recite) at the convention in favor of Lincoln’s nomination. Clay did not attend the convention and said as much in his memoir (he also notes that Lincoln was his second choice after Chase). When Proctor was confronted with this information by William Henry Townsend, author of Lincoln and the Bluegrass, Proctor maintained that Clay was at least at the hotel if he had not attended the convention (p. 378, n. 12). Townsend was kind enough not to tell Proctor that Clay also says in his Life that had he been at the convention, according to everyone there, that Clay and not Hannibal Hamlin would have been nominated Vice President. The lesson here is that when you come across a narrative by one of these living relics, your first reaction shouldn’t be that of Seinfeld’s Kramer: “A story like that has got to be true.”

A Multitude of Emancipation Proclamations

In the video above, a clueless Barney Fife attempts to elucidate what the Emancipation Proclamation is with no success. At one point he shouts exasperatedly at Andy Griffith that the Emancipation Proclamation was “about emancipation, what do you think it was about!?” The proclamation in question, the one of January 1, 1863, did not bring “the end of slavery in America” as Allen Guelzo’s subtitle of his Lincoln Prize winning book states, nor was it the only proclamation of emancipation.

Journalist Douglas A. Blackmon found that slavery, “by another name,” continued in the South for more than seventy years after the passage of 13^th amendment. It was only after the horrors of the National Socialist regime in Germany were witnessed that, according to Blackmon, “the final delivery of African Americans from overt slavery and from the quiet complicity of the federal government in their servitude” (p. 382).  Slavery on a much smaller scale still exists in the US with the slave holders getting what amounts to a slap on the wrist in the way of punishment. Lincoln himself had to deal with the sympathetic friends and relatives of Captain Nathaniel Gordon, who was convicted of violating the Piracy Law of 1820 by being “engaged in the slave trade.” The penalty was death and Lincoln refused to grant Gordon a pardon. Gordon became the only person in US history to be executed for being a slave trader on February 21, 1862. Lincoln signed a treaty with the British in July of 1862 “for the suppression of the slave trade.” Meanwhile, we should remember that a “conservative estimate” maintains that 27 million people are enslaved worldwide today.

On the subject of proclamations, Lincoln issued two (he also signed two separate 1862 bills which abolished slavery 1) in Washington, D.C. through compensated emancipation—an idea he tried without success as a Congressman in 1849 and 2) in the territories—a law directly challenging the Dred Scott decision). The first was a preliminary proclamation on September 22, 1862. Technically States or parts of States “in rebellion against the United States” in September could have read this document as a warning and discontinued their support of the Confederacy and joined the Border States in keeping their slaves when the final Emancipation Proclamation  was issued on January 1, 1863. Predictably, the Civil War raged on. Lincoln had also revoked two proclamations by the time he issued his preliminary proclamation, those of General John C. Frémont in Missouri and General David Hunter for Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. By the time of the final Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln had also already asked Congress for a resolution supporting compensated emancipation, drafted a bill for compensated emancipation in Delaware, appealed to Border States to get their representatives to favor emancipation, and worked out the figures in his December 1862 Annual Message on the cost of compensated emancipation were it to be dragged out over 37 years.

It took a long time for Lincoln to come to the position that he had the authority as Commander-in-Chief “in time of actual armed rebellion against authority and government of the United States” to abolish slavery. He had for most of his adult life favored gradual emancipation and voluntary colonization of freed blacks as his hero Henry Clay advocated. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed very few slaves, but this did not matter much in the imagination of the country at the time nor does it now. The Sunday before the issuing of the proclamation, Frederick Douglass said: “It is difficult for us who have toiled so long and hard, to believe that this event, so stupendous, so far reaching and glorious is even now at the door. It surpasses our most enthusiastic hopes that we live at such a time and are likely to witness the downfall, at least the legal downfall of slavery in America. It is a moment for joy, thanksgiving and praise.”

It would take two more years of bloody war and the passage of the 13^th Amendment to ensure that Lincoln’s efforts at legally ending slavery were not rolled back.