150 years ago this week, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Our sixteenth president, the man who oversaw the Union's victory and oversaw the beginning of the end of slavery. Abe Lincoln is widely regarded, and I don't think anyone can argue otherwise, as one of the greatest presidents in American history. But one title we give him is arguable at best: Honest Abe. Because Abraham Lincoln was one of the cunning, calculating individuals ever to walk the stage of American politics.
Let's start from the very beginning. Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky - but you all know that story. Eventually, Lincoln made his way to the House of Representatives, a Whig representing Illinois. His opposition to the popular Mexican-American war and the territorial acquisitions that ensued cost him his seat in congress, and he went back to his law firm in Springfield. Not long after that, he joined a new political movement that was gathering steam. The Republican Party (yes, that Republican Party), so-named for its focus on the republican ideals emphasized by the founding fathers, opposed the expansion of slavery. The Radical Republicans of the day, as they were known, vehemently opposed the practice due to its inhumanity. The conservative Republicans of the time stood against it because it blocked economic progress and opportunity. And the moderates, the group most would count Lincoln in, opposed it because it stood against the founders' principles. Because this one fact is often lost to history: Lincoln wasn't entirely opposed to the practice of slavery. On a personal level, it seems that he found it unsettling, but he wasn't about to put an end to it. Many of his speeches from his early days in office display this notion. Lincoln spent his first few weeks trying to convince the southern states that he wasn't trying to take slavery from them. We all know how well that worked out. The slave states that stayed in the union - Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware - did so more because they feared they would be caught in the middle of a north-south conflict, and figured the Union, with its greater population and industrial potential, would win the day. Abe didn't view the Confederacy as its own nation - he viewed it as a rebellion, as did most Northerners. A rebellion to be quelled by any means necessary. Many of the actions Lincoln took while in office were unheard of in the days before - or since - the Civil War. Lincoln did more to expand executive powers than did any other president in our history. The president commanded the Navy to blockade key Confederate ports, distributed funds without Congress's approval, and imposed martial law. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus - essentially, the right to escape unlawful imprisonment. Thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers were arrested on Lincoln's watch. The only thing to come close to this in the entirety of American history is another dark spot on an otherwise fantastic president's reputation: the internment of Japanese-Americans on FDR's watch.
And the biggest kicker of them all? The Emancipation Proclamation, which made the war about freeing the slaves, was a political play. Many European nations watching the sidelines of the American Civil War favored the South, very much in the same way the US would go onto favor them in the World Wars. As hinted, Britain and France were among those nations that were willing to cast their lots with the south. Lincoln feared that European involvement would turn the tide of the war against the Union. But as I said before, Lincoln was one of the smartest men we've ever had. He read the diplomatic battlefield with a sort of strategic genius, and played the hand he'd been given to the maximum. Through the Proclamation, he turned the Civil War from a war about the rights of a country's subdivisions into a war over the practice of slavery. Therefore, if Britain was to enter the war on the South's side, they would have been entering the war on the side of slavery. Britain couldn't very well do that, given the fact that they'd been one of the first nations to abolish slavery outright on moral grounds. Any question of a European entry into the war was eliminated on January 1st, 1863. And the South lost its best chance for victory. Lincoln approved of Sherman's March and other such tactics to destroy Confederate morale and hasten the end of the war.
So why do we forgive Lincoln? Well, we forgive him because of his motivation. Lincoln wasn't taking upon huge amounts of power to rule the nation as a dictator or to crush the Confederacy into oblivion. He was trying to repair the Union. It's a key feature shared by many of the men we consider to be among the greatest presidents we've ever had - take Washington. Take FDR. And, of course, take Lincoln. All these men had the opportunity, at some point, to seize power for themselves. And each of these men turned their backs on that opportunity. Lincoln did all that he did to preserve the Union. That was his goal throughout the Civil War. He wasn't trying to achieve a political end, or conniving to become the most powerful man in the western hemisphere. He was trying to save the United States from utter ruin. And he did. Lincoln wasn't a vengeful man. Whereas many radical Republicans wanted to punish the south, Lincoln wanted to welcome them back into the American nation and rebuild their economy, preparing them for a post-slavery world. Then, 150 years ago this past Wednesday, he was assassinated. His Vice President, Andrew Johnson, couldn't stand up to the radical Republicans in Congress, and things didn't go well for the southern states. That's the biggest reason why there's so much animosity between the north and south to this day, to say nothing of the partisan divide.
This brings me to an interesting point. The current blue states and red states were flipped before the sixties. The Northeast and the West Coast were Republican strongholds, while the Democrats commanded the South and much of the midwest. And then the whole thing turned on its head. But that's for next week's discussion.
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