What’s in it for me? Gain insight into Lincoln’s personal and political evolution.
The following two quotes were by Abraham Lincoln in the same year, and yet, their messages are so opposed that they seem as if they must have been spoken by two different men.
“I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any Abolitionist.
Let us … unite as one people throughout this land.
” “I will say … 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.
” Given that they're so opposed to each other, you'd be forgiven for thinking they must have been said by two different people with entirely conflicting beliefs.
But in fact, they were both said by Abraham Lincoln – and in the same year.
Lincoln was, to say the least, a complicated figure.
And for decades, scholars and pundits have been pulling out quotes of his to support their own political arguments.
For some, Lincoln was essentially a racist who used emancipation as a political tool.
For others, Lincoln was the opposite: a politician, yes, but one fully dedicated to equality and emancipation.
In this Blink to Jon Meacham’s And There Was Light, you’ll find that the reality is much more nuanced.
Lincoln did a lot of good, yet he also didn’t go as far as many hoped.
As the leader of a divided country, Lincoln managed to resolve a conflict that to many seemed irreconcilable.
The consequences of his presidency, and the war he presided over, still echo to this day.
Early Life
Though a gifted, persuasive speaker, there was one subject about which Abraham Lincoln was less than loquacious: his background.
Once, when a correspondent asked for information about his upbringing, Lincoln responded: “There is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much of me.
” Lincoln was embarrassed by his humble origins in rural Kentucky.
His mother, Nancy, had frequently been the subject of rumors, thanks to her family’s reputation for promiscuity.
Meanwhile, his father, Thomas, was the youngest son of a large family and had been orphaned at the age of six.
As a result, he was never educated, illiterate, and unable to write anything lengthier than his name.
Abe Lincoln’s early years weren’t exactly cheerful ones.
Growing up in Kentucky, the winters were cold and bleak.
His toes stuck out of his threadbare boots and his clothes were tattered and worn.
His family’s farm, Knob Creek, lived up to its name: full of thick, knobby cedar trees spread across deep ravines.
As a child, his father hired his son out to the neighbors and then took his wages.
Lincoln resented this all his life and once even remarked, “I used to be a slave.
” The experience made such an impression on him that it may have informed his antislavery views as an adult.
Making his life even more difficult, he became motherless at the age of nine after Nancy fell sick and died.
Unlike his father, young Abe received a little formal education – less than a year – which proved to be invaluable.
Specifically, he learned to write.
Afterward, he wrote everywhere, scrawling letters with pieces of charcoal in the dust, the sand, and the snow.
Lincoln was obsessed with learning and possessed an innate curiosity.
Books were his escape.
He read voraciously, and what he read created his intellectual and moral foundation.
Religiously, young Abe was exposed to the Baptist faith.
In Baptist churches, opposition to slavery was common and abolition a frequent topic.
The Lincolns were also members of the Baptist Licking-Locust Association Friends of Humanity – which was also known as an “emancipation association.
” Later, Lincoln would claim that he was “naturally antislavery.
” He wasn’t just embellishing the truth for political gain.
In the America of Lincoln’s youth, politics was all-consuming.
Getting into Politics
As suffrage for white men expanded, political engagement increased.
This was the world in which Lincoln yearned to make his mark – to transcend the limitations of his upbringing and prove himself legitimate.
As he settled in the small Illinois town of New Salem, he found himself drawn to the courtroom.
There, he observed lawyers with fascination.
Hearing a defense lawyer make a powerful case for his client in a murder trial, Lincoln later remarked that his “soul would have been satisfied” if he could have made as good a speech as that.
Indeed, Lincoln already had an inkling of his natural rhetorical gifts.
He’d given his first political speech in the summer of 1830, at the age of 21, even before moving to New Salem.
He found that his voice had a sweet, persuasive quality to it, and he liked to command the crowd’s attention.
Lincoln first ran for political office in 1832, seeking a position in the Illinois legislature.
He lost the election – a bitter disappointment for him.
Afterward, he kept busy in a position as the New Salem postmaster.
At the same time, Lincoln continued to read and discuss literature voraciously.
Inspired by a work by Thomas Paine arguing against traditional religion, Lincoln prepared his own essay railing against Christianity.
It was widely read and discussed – until one day a friend and mentor of Lincoln’s snatched the manuscript and burned it.
Being politically ambitious, it wasn’t wise for Lincoln to express views that would have been seen as radical by the country’s political elite.
Thereafter, Lincoln remained pragmatic when in the public eye – though his private views often told a different story.
Slavery was the moral question throughout Lincoln’s life and time in politics.
The Struggle Over Slavery
As such, the topic was ever-present during Lincoln’s four terms in the Illinois state legislature – a position he won two years after his initial loss.
Early on, Lincoln was a member of the Whig Party.
The Whigs were opposed to slavery but didn’t advocate for its immediate abolition.
Lincoln, along with many other antislavery advocates, believed that the federal government didn’t have the constitutional power to abolish slavery in the states where it existed.
Only the states themselves could choose to emancipate.
Because of this belief, Lincoln subscribed to the scorpion’s sting strategy.
The idea was that free states would surround the South, tightening the area around the “scorpion” so that eventually, it would be forced to bury its stinger in its own brain.
Thus, it – and slavery – would die.
This strategy was one that relied not on federal intervention but a gradual, cultural shift.
In 1848 and 1849, Lincoln prepared a resolution to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.
His plan was a gradualist one that kowtowed to owners of enslaved people.
It stated, for instance, that enslaved people currently in the District could only be freed if their owner was compensated for the “full value of his or her slave,” and that fugitive enslaved people should be arrested and returned.
Both abolitionists and proslavery advocates were unimpressed and the effort failed.
But Lincoln continued to believe in compromise and compensation.
He was an enemy of slavery, yet he wanted to ensure that his proposals stood a chance of being passed.
As opposition to slavery grew louder, the interest of those owning enslaved people grew ever more defensive.
Lincoln continued to attempt to occupy a middle ground.
Lincoln Ascendant
Despite his gradualism, Lincoln didn’t hide his opposition to slavery.
He didn’t hide it when he vocally criticized the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would have enabled new territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery.
He didn’t hide it in 1854 when as part of a Senate campaign speech he called slavery a “monstrous injustice” and a “great moral wrong.
” And he didn’t hide it in 1856 when he joined the newly-formed Republican Party, which was explicitly committed to the abolition of slavery.
By 1858, Lincoln’s name had become well-known.
Though he’d lost his Senate race in Illinois against Stephen Douglas, the Republican political world had taken note of him.
The debates with Douglas had been highly publicized, and Lincoln’s rhetorical skill had made him a national figure almost overnight.
It was for this reason that the Republican Party chose Lincoln as their nominee for the 1860 presidential election – and he won.
The famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass was pleased with the result.
Lincoln’s election had, in his view, “broken the power” of the “imperious slave oligarchy” that had run the country for the previous 50 years.
Yet Lincoln’s transition to power was a tense one.
He arrived in the Capital surreptitiously; treason was in the air.
The former governor of Virginia was rumored to be raising a 25,000-man army to march on the capital and prevent Lincoln from taking office.
But instead, the South elected to break away from the Union entirely.
In December 1860, South Carolina declared its secession.
Other Southern states soon followed.
Together, on February 8, 1861, they formed the Confederate States of America.
Civil War
After the Confederate States of America had declared itself separate from the Union, Frederick Douglass wondered aloud whether Lincoln would, characteristically, seek a compromise.
This time, he didn’t.
Lincoln was perhaps emboldened after defeating his adversaries at the polls.
In a speech, he declared that the Union and the original Constitution would be perpetuated.
He went so far as to declare that he’d rather be assassinated on the spot than surrender the work of the Founding Fathers.
Despite other prominent Republicans being willing to compromise with the South, Lincoln refused to capitulate.
In response, the Confederacy turned to bloodshed.
On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, a federal garrison in Charleston, South Carolina.
From the Confederate perspective, passions needed to be kept high for secession to succeed.
War, they decided, was the only way.
The next morning, Lincoln wrote: “I shall, to the extent of my ability, repel force by force.
” He could no longer hold the nation together peaceably.
As Lincoln began to navigate the war, he was also faced with personal tragedy.
In February 1862, one of his sons, Willie, contracted typhoid fever and died.
He was only eleven years old.
His beloved child’s death marked a significant change in Lincoln.
Thereafter, he began spending more time at church, and his religious inquiries turned toward the personal.
In a private note, he wrote: “The will of God prevails.
” He mused about whether God favored the Union, the Confederacy, or some unknown third option.
Lincoln now saw a world informed by the idea of God’s providence.
In this, even the death of a child could be part of a plan devised by an all-knowing, all-loving God.
Emancipation
Ever the cautious leader, Lincoln was reluctant to alienate his base and jeopardize his political standing.
So he attacked slavery only when and where he believed it was safe.
Eventually, in July 1862, he felt comfortable broaching the subject of full emancipation.
It wasn’t a purely moral consideration.
The Union wasn’t performing well in the war, and emancipation, Lincoln hoped, would encourage Black Americans to join them in the fight.
Lincoln had drafted the first version of the Emancipation Proclamation in the summer.
Yet he sat on it for months, unsure if it was the best decision.
Would freeing the enslaved turn too many white Northerners against him, or would it gain him the Black support he needed to win the war?
Finally, in September 1862, Lincoln received what he interpreted as a divine signal.
He’d made a vow that if God gave the Union victory in battle in Antietam, Maryland, he’d consider it an indication of divine will and move forward with emancipation.
And so it was, Union General McClellan claimed victory.
“God had decided this question in favor of the slave,” Lincoln said.
On New Year's Day, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
He was highly attuned to the historical nature of the moment: “If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.
” The document declared that all slaves in Confederate states were henceforth considered free.
It also authorized the recruitment and arming of Black men.
The war had been transformed from a fight for the Union into a fight for the enslaved.
War’s End
The cannons roared at dawn on the morning of Monday, April 10, 1865.
Five hundred explosions in total rocked the capital.
The sound of the explosions literally cracked the windows of people’s homes, while the streets came alive and muddy with celebration.
Lincoln, breakfasting in the White House, could hear it all clearly.
The Union had triumphed in the American Civil War.
After Emancipation, the tide of the conflict had finally begun to swing in favor of the Union – gradually at first and then all at once.
It had become apparent that the Union army was vastly superior in both numbers and resources.
The Confederates had lost key territory, and a last-gasp attempt to enlist the enslaved in the white Southern army was a miserable failure.
About a week prior, the Union had closed on the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
On April 2, Confederate General Lee sent a telegraph to Confederate President Davis that he could no longer hold his position in the nearby town of Appomattox, Virginia.
As the capital fell, wagons were loaded in preparation for flight from the city, banks were emptied of deposits, and tavern keepers poured barrels of whiskey into the streets.
As Lincoln walked the streets of the fallen capital a day later, a few Black people rushed to kneel at Lincoln’s feet.
He told them not to.
“That is not right.
You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy.
” The end of the war was a triumph for the Union.
But tragedy for Lincoln, and the newly reunified nation, would strike just days later.
John Wilkes Booth was a handsome, elegant figure.
Assassination and Aftermath
He was also a white supremacist and a Confederate sympathizer who’d long harbored a seething hatred for President Lincoln.
Eventually, that hatred craved expression.
On April 14, 1865, at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, President Lincoln was attending a showing of the farce Our American Cousin.
In the second scene of the third act, Booth snuck to the president’s box, in which he’d carved a small hole.
Through it, he peered at the president from a small anteroom.
When he decided the moment was right, Booth opened the door, walked toward the president, and shot him directly in the head with a .
44-caliber single-shot pistol.
A few hours later, Lincoln breathed his last, lying down diagonally across a bed too small for his tall stature.
The grief among Lincoln’s family, and across the nation, was palpable.
Though not for all.
Booth had accomplished his mission, despite being later captured and killed himself.
Certain journals had been calling Lincoln a “despot,” “usurper,” and all but recommended that someone kill him.
One journalist wrote that Lincoln had been “a tyrant justly felled by an avenging hand.
” After Lincoln’s death, his vice president, Andrew Johnson, took office.
Lincoln had just barely begun his second term, giving President Johnson plenty of time to wreak havoc.
And indeed, his tenure proved a disaster for racial progress.
Reactionary and racist, Johnson had been chosen as Lincoln’s running mate in his second term for political reasons – an attempt to pacify white, antiblack Northerners.
Johnson promptly declared that Black people were incapable of self-government and that white men alone should manage the South.
Though slavery had ended, white supremacy and racial hierarchy could and would live on – in the form of Jim Crow laws, segregation, and lynchings.
It would be a long time before Black Americans found any real semblance of equality.
Final summary
Abraham Lincoln is frequently invoked by people all across the political spectrum.
Inconsistent in his messages, it’s all too easy to twist the figure of Lincoln to suit one’s purpose.
In reality, Lincoln was a progressive, though one that never fully adopted the most stringent brand of abolitionist creed, and his views on slavery evolved throughout his political life.
Ultimately, Lincoln’s actions symbolized America’s first major lurch toward equality for all – and they were also the reason for his assassination by white supremacist John Wilkes Booth.