Leaning on Lincoln

Leaning on Lincoln

Are there not incidents in history that render it dear to us all?

            In the second Presidential Debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, moderator Martha Raddatz pressed Clinton on her position of holding both private and public positions.  In response, Clinton cited Abraham Lincoln. Clinton compared her actions with Lincoln’s political maneuvering to pass the 13^th Amendment to the United States Constitution.  Trump pulled no

Second Presidential Debate
Courtesy: New York Daily News

punches and argued that Clinton held no common ground with Lincoln, referring to Lincoln as Honest Abe, the man who never lied. The reference to Lincoln in the presidential debate is not an anomaly; instead it is quite common in and out of the political sphere.  With over six hundred schools named after him and more books written about him than any other president, Lincoln remains an iconic figure to members of American society throughout history.  Penn State University scholar of Political Communication, Kirt H. Wilson, argues that Lincoln is and will continue to be a hero in the public mind, identifying Lincoln as “more than a figure of history; he is an active presence in our collective imagination and memory.”[1]

Ever since Lincoln took a bullet from John Wilkes Booth’s pistol, leaders identified Lincoln as either a target for criticism to build their reputation or a platform to create a partnership with the iconic president.  John Hope Franklin, former president of the American Historical Society, defends this incongruity, surmising that Lincoln is “a symbol and an inspiration to those who chose to use his legacy, as well as those who chose to misuse it.”[2]  Lincoln’s legacy has a foundation built on his successes, which may be attributed to his practices of virtue and honesty that echo through generations.  Through criticism or comparison, leaders in American society lean on Lincoln to build their reputation.  Admirers and adversaries alike have and will continue use his legacy to develop and improve their own.  Some may find it troubling, but incongruity is an important part of forming a perspective on Lincoln. 

Throughout history, Lincoln remained a foundation to American society.  The prescient Frederick Douglass stated that the name of Lincoln “will… hold its place in the memories of men,” to a crowd in December of 1865.[3]  In 2001, Gabor Boritt, American historian, contested that Abraham Lincoln is alive and well and

“people want a piece of him.”[4]  The Presidential debate was just one of many examples in which Boritt is correct.  Upon becoming the first African-American President of the United States, Barack Obama used the same Bible as Abraham Lincoln for his for his swearing-in ceremony.  Obama was the first to do so since Lincoln.  President Obama identified Lincoln’s practices of “wisdom [and] humanity” as “very helpful” in his political life.[5] 

President Obama's 2009 Inauguration
Courtesy: Washington Post

Obama is not alone in his admiration of Lincoln.  Both Republican and Democratic presidents are inspired by President Lincoln.  The Director of the Lyndon B Johnson Presidential Library, Mark Updegrove, interviewed several presidents, including; Carter, Ford, Clinton, and both Bushes.  Updegrove revealed that in times of their “most trying days,” presidents reflected on Lincoln “first and foremost as an inspiration.”[6]  Both Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls, successful and not, engage Lincoln in their bids for higher office.  From Taft, Eisenhower, Goldwater and Dole on the right, to Kennedy, FDR, Clinton, and Obama on the left, leaders maneuver the memory of Lincoln in support of their cause.

Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream speech” are arguably the two most famous speeches in American history.  Gerald George assessed that these speeches have a “mythic hold” on us, even today.[7]  The comparison does not end at speeches nor does it end at both Lincoln and King Jr.’s demise through the barrels of an assassins’ selected weaponry.  Arguably, both Dr. King Jr. and President Lincoln led their respective era’s civil rights movements: Lincoln, through abolishing slavery and passing the 13^th Amendment and King Jr. through peaceful protest movements and efforts to end segregation. 

As leaders lean on Lincoln and refer to him in the positive, others use Lincoln as a target of criticism and blame.  Lyon G. Tyler, one of the many children of President John Tyler accused Lincoln of establishing despotism through “waging a cruel and barbarous war on southern civilians.”  What others called a brave, courageous act, Lyon Tyler called the Emancipation Proclamation a “criminal act,” identifying Lincoln as the “true parent of Reconstruction, legislative robbery, and negro supremacy, cheating at the polls, rapes of white women, lynching, and the acts of the Ku Klux Klan.”  Tyler continued his criticism of Lincoln, including accusations of being “vulgar in personal habits, weak and deceitful in character, and, in any case, dominated by the radicals of his party.”[8] 

Reverend Louis Farrakhan would find himself in deep disagreement with Tyler on many political viewpoints, but shares in the criticism of the late president, calling Lincoln, “one awful racist honky;” an enemy of the black population.[9]  Farrakhan refers to Lincoln, not as the Great Emancipator, but as a man who advocated the continuation of slavery while president.  Using the writings of Lincoln, Farrakhan delivers a critical analysis on Lincoln’s
ideology in regards to slavery.  Lincoln, in a letter to Horace Greeley, stated that preservation of the Union was his top priority

as president and that “if I [Lincoln] could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it…”[10]  This letter, published a year after Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address, serves as evidence to fuel the fire of criticism in regards to Lincoln’s position on slavery. In it, he stated that he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists,” continuing that he believed he had “no lawful right to do so, and… no inclination to do so.”[11]    Lincoln’s admitted disinterest in abolishing slavery, according to Farrakhan, served as validation that Lincoln’s aim was to preserve the Union, “not freeing you and that’s why you’re still singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’”[12]  Farrakhan, choosing only to use a portion of Lincoln’s letter, leaves out the next line explaining that Lincoln would free “all the slaves,” if it would preserve the Union.[13]  This is a clear example of how individuals defend their stances through the dissection of Lincoln’s actions and words.

Throughout history, Lincoln was the object of ownership for opposing sides.  Thomas Dixon, Jr., the novelist whose book, The Clansman (1905) inspired the film Birth of a Nation (1915), attempted to claim Lincoln as a Southern sympathizer through the Lost Cause ideology.[14]  Dixon focused on racism that many argued they saw in Lincoln, while another female Southerner identified Lincoln as a Southerner through his “manner of speech,” easiness, kindness, “tenderness and humor,” and most of all the way he showed respect to even his enemies.[15]  On the other hand, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, exclaimed that it was time for the Democrats “to claim Lincoln as one of [their] own,” referring to Democratic policies that he believed Lincoln would have aligned with.[16]  Steven F. Hayward, Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, used FDR’s statement as an example of the movement to liberalize Reagan and his administration’s policies.  Hayward went on to accuse the left of appropriating Republican leaders of the past, specifically Lincoln and Reagan, for their own cause.[17]  Hayward‘s argument is not a revolutionary idea: successful individuals from the past are fuel to current political movements, particularly Abraham Lincoln.  

In 1936, T.V. Smith, a distinguished philosopher from the University of Chicago, said “Lincoln lighted life… with simplicity and magnanimity.”[18]  One may argue that Lincoln was larger than the office he held.  Whether his legacy portrays all that is right and good with the American nation or tarnished because of his political beliefs and actions during the war, the fact is that his legacy lives on.  This legacy continued throughout the last century and a half following Lincoln’s assassination and will continue for future generations.  In the words of Boritt, “the whole country rides Abraham Lincoln… and well they should.”[19]

From historians and leaders of our government, to coaches, and everyday citizens, all should lean on Lincoln.  Learn from his mistakes and build on his successes; but most importantly remember his legacy, it casts a shadow over us in which we can thrive.

---

[1] Kirt H. Wilson, “Debating the Great Emancipator: Abraham Lincoln and our Public Memory,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 13, no. 3 (Fall 2010): 455.

[2] John H. Franklin, “The Use and Misuse of the Lincoln Legacy,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 7, no. 1 (1985): 32.

[3] Frederick Douglass, “Abraham Lincoln, A Speech,” December 1865.

[4] Gabor Boritt, “Introduction,” in The Lincoln Enigma: The Changing Faces of an American Icon, ed. Gabor Boritt (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), xvi.

[5] Ed Hornick, For Obama, Lincoln Was Model President, CNN, Sunday January 18, 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/17/lincoln.obsession/index.html?eref=onion.

[6] Peter Baker, Abraham Lincoln, the One President All of Them Want to Be More Like, The New York Times,  April 14^th, 2015.

[7] Gerald George, “King, Lincoln, and Poetic Oratory,” American history Aug 2003, Vol. 38, Issue 3

[8] Franklin, “The Use and the Misuse of the Lincoln Legacy,” 32.

[9] Boritt,  “Introduction,” in Lincoln Enigma, xvi.

[10] Abraham Lincoln, “President Lincoln’s Response to Greeley’s ‘Prayer of Twenty Millions,’” New York Tribune, August 25^th, 1862.

[11] Abraham Lincoln, “First Inaugural Address,” Washington, D.C., March 4^th, 1861.

[12] Jemison, A.C. 3 Main Lessons to Take from Farrakhan’s #JusticeOrElse Speech.  Urban Intellectuals. October 13^th, 2015.

[13] Lincoln, “Response to Greeley,” August 25^th, 1862.

[14] Franklin, “The Use and Misuse of Lincoln Legacy,” 33.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Steven F. Hayward, “Reagan Reclaimed,” National Review (Jan. 24, 2011): 2.

[17] Hayward, “Reagan Reclaimed,” 2.

[18] Franklin, “The Use and the Misuse of the Lincoln Legacy,” 32.

[19] Boritt, “Introduction,” in Lincoln Enigma, xvii.