Lincoln

[art]

Was he the savior of our nation? A hypocritcal opportunist? Genius? Gay?

Personally I believe he was our greatest president.

[Val1]

Lincoln's election may have precipitated the South's secession, but it was coming anyway.

So, given that, Lincoln did what he had to do, and that was win the war and reunite the country. And in his second inaugural, he provided the emotional blueprint for re-unifying.

More has never been asked of any US president, so I would have to agree with your assessment.

[art]

for the sake of discussion...an example of anti-Lincoln opinion.

http://akjb.org/The%20Great%20Abe%20Lincoln.html

Try not to dismiss it as the ramblings of a crackpot (which is easy to do).

[Mr. Bee]

Didn't he order the massacre of a bunch of Indians or something?

[Dead Fingers]

Didn't he order the massacre of a bunch of Indians or something?

Granted, it is a wiki, but here is some more info on it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sioux_Uprising

[Dead Fingers]

We could probably take up thread just talking about the debates with Douglas

[Pmoliu]

for the sake of discussion...an example of anti-Lincoln opinion.

http://akjb.org/The%20Great%20Abe%20Lincoln.html

Try not to dismiss it as the ramblings of a crackpot (which is easy to do).

Oh boy. I want my time back.

Paul

[DoctorD]

Lincoln was a great president, but IIRC also a great politician. For example, he changed his message wrt slavery depending on where in the country he was campaigning. This has led to some scepticism about his qualities.

[BenReilly]

Was he the savior of our nation? A hypocritcal opportunist? Genius? Gay?

Yes, no, maybe, who cares.


Personally I believe he was our greatest president.

Agreed.

[Real Ray]

The second innagural speech is worth a thread of its own:

Fellow Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it -- all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war -- seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope -- fervently do we pray -- that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

[YankHibee]

for the sake of discussion...an example of anti-Lincoln opinion.

http://akjb.org/The%20Great%20Abe%20Lincoln.html

Try not to dismiss it as the ramblings of a crackpot (which is easy to do).

Dismissed as the ramblings of a crackpot. Sorry. At least it was well written ;)

[thesportingrogue]

I think, had he survived to complete his second term, Reconstruction would have been more of a Reconciliation.

[topcatcole]

I think, had he survived to complete his second term, Reconstruction would have been more of a Reconciliation. There is an old saying in the South that Lincoln died either too late or too early.

[yossarian]

I think, had he survived to complete his second term, Reconstruction would have been more of a Reconciliation.

Perhaps, but I don't think he would have been as conciliatory toward the south as Johnson was.

[topcatcole]

Perhaps, but I don't think he would have been as conciliatory toward the south as Johnson was. AFAIK, Lincoln was prepared to readmit the southern states essentially immediately on the cessation of the war. He did not want the period of "reconstruction" that was foisted on the South. Johnson agreed with this view, although he did not have the political backing (or skills) to make it happen.

[yossarian]

AFAIK, Lincoln was prepared to readmit the southern states essentially immediately on the cessation of the war. He did not want the period of "reconstruction" that was foisted on the South. Johnson agreed with this view, although he did not have the political backing (or skills) to make it happen.

True, but I don't think Lincoln (and I'm certainly speculating here) would have turned such a blind eye to the brutalizing and intimidation of the newly freed peoples in the South. (and before you get into it, yes, I know Lincoln didn't have the most progressive views on race relations) I also don't think Lincoln would've vetoed the Civil Rights bill as Johnson did (largely to curry favor with Democrats).

In short, yes, Lincoln was for reconciliation as opposed to the radical Republicans in Congress, but from what I've read it would still have been a bit sterner than that advocated by Johnson.

[Mel Brennan]

We could probably take up thread just talking about the debates with Douglas

I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races--that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which will ever forbid the two races living together in terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior. I am as much as any other man in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

...notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence--the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas that he is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color--perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments; but in the right to eat bread without leave of anybody else which his own hand earns [the Republican version of what the other rights amount to?], he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas and the equal of every other man.

(Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, v. 3 [New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1953], pp. 247-8. Sixth Debate with Steven A. Douglas at Quincy, Ill., Oct. 13, 1858)


Lincoln was a man in the midst of a process of possibility, that being one of becoming a 'great' President in terms of affirming - and BEING - a maximization of his own humanity and the keeping track of that of any other. But that, combined with a will to keep the Union together, is all I can say about him. Anything else would be Campbellian monomythic application of something else superimposed over, and making opaque, the actual language we have from him on a number of wholly moral issues, not the LEAST of which is the clear underpinning of white supremacist doctrine seen above (not supremacist in terms of neo-nazi-ist Klannish behaviour, but in the casually debated (at one time, now casually ignored) appropriation of human primacy by white people.

Lincoln contributes to this even as he is immersed in an awareness of humanity that springs from intimate relations with mass death, one that begins, or seems to, a subversive and transformative process that calls upon those 'human' notions mentioned above, in their Latin, rooted sense: humando, burying. The more humans Lincoln saw buried, the more aware of everyone's humanity he seemed to become. Ironically, he became mythologized in ways he never was during his political career after he himself was violently subject to this humando sensibility.

Because that process of possibilty remained incomplete (because it was cut short, as with Malcolm X, who was on a similar arc if not a smiliar journey), the best we can say is that Lincoln was successful at some things, as differentiated from being great.

To say he was the greatest President isn't saying that much, and places 'greatness' on such a meager continuum as to render the word impotent.

[KevTheGooner]

I'm no expert on the man but I don't think he was by any means a progressive. I would think that had he lived to oversee reconstruction he would have turned an iron gaze upon many of the problems felt by the south.

[yossarian]

I'm no expert on the man but I don't think he was by any means a progressive. I would think that had he lived to oversee reconstruction he would have turned an iron gaze upon many of the problems felt by the south.

Correct, as I think Mel's very good post points out.

[vivzig]

Plus, he was gay.