Lincoln: A President for War and Peace

Scott Horton

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, — 'I see no probability of the British invading us;' but he will say to you, 'Be silent: I see it, if you don't.'

"The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood."

- Abraham Lincoln, letter to William H. Herndon, Feb. 15, 1848 (Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, had written him arguing that the president as commander-in-chief possessed the right to initiate a war against Mexico without specific Congressional authorization)


"But the life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible. He tells us that there is power in words. He tells us that there is power in conviction. That beneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people. He tells us that there is power in hope.

"As Lincoln organized the forces arrayed against slavery, he was heard to say: 'Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought to battle through.'
…

"I want us to take up the unfinished business of perfecting our union, and building a better America. And if you will join me in this improbable quest, if you feel destiny calling, and see as I see, a future of endless possibility stretching before us; if you sense, as I sense, that the time is now to shake off our slumber, and slough off our fear, and make good on the debt we owe past and future generations, then I'm ready to take up the cause, and march with you, and work with you. Together, starting today, let us finish the work that needs to be done, and usher in a new birth of freedom on this Earth."

- Sen Barack Obama, evokes the memory of Abraham Lincoln in announcing his candidacy for the presidency, in a speech in Springfield, IL, Feb. 10, 2007. Watch the whole speech here.


Abraham Lincoln was born 198 years ago today. A recent issue of The Atlantic ranks Abraham Lincoln as the most important American since the nation's founding. Among America's other presidents, only Washington and FDR get prominent mention. This assessment must be right not only because of Lincoln's importance to America, but because of his world-historical role, to evoke the Hegelian measure. As Lincoln came to the helm, the very concept of democratic government was in peril. At Gettysburg he spoke immortal words of a "high resolve" that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." These words are seen by many as a rhetorical flourish, but there is a deeper truth to them than most suppose. As Francis Lieber – one of the handful of European ex-revolutionaries who gathered around Lincoln - noted, this planet possessed a sole democracy that merited the name, and that was the United States. True, Europe had its enlightened monarchies, and in Switzerland there was a colorable democracy – but only one significant nation stood for freedom and a genuine democratic franchise, and that was the United States. Moreover, the challenge raised by the South was a mortal one, not only to the Union, but also to its most fundamental values, starting with human dignity, namely recognizing the humanity of those whom the Constitution shamefully called 3/5 persons. Lincoln's success in upholding the Union reinvigorated the notion of democracy, and must be attached to its resurgence globally in the second half of the 19th century. Lincoln thus rekindled a torch that had faltered soon after the revolution.

In the last six years, the noble legacy of America's greatest president has been used shamefully by the advocates of the new politics of American Empire. These folks have no real affection for Lincoln. Following the Straussian program, they seek to recraft American history and the legacy of American leaders to fit their own agenda. Hence, they have crafted a vision of a dark new Lincoln, a man intoxicated by the power of his office, who swept aside civil liberties and took great liberties with the Constitution in the exercise of his war powers. In sum, they have captured, and sought to glamorize, what may be the darkest and most doubtful elements of an indisputably great man. In truth there are many unsettling things that were done with a sense of urgent necessity in the course of the Civil War; things which seem difficult to reconcile with the vision of the man from Springfield. But it's plain first that the necessity claimed was legitimate and second that Lincoln was not happy in doing these things, that he did not seek to craft some new imperial order. Moreover, the hallmark of Lincoln's contribution to this war effort was a vision of humanity and justice, a repudiation of cruelty, and a denunciation of the use of military necessity as a doctrinal justification for excesses (all of which repose in his General Order No. 100 of April 23, 1863, the seminal document of international humanitarian law).

Lincoln was by most accounts a man of great modesty. As Frederick Douglass wrote, he was "[t]he first great man that I talked with in the United States freely who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color." He had no lasting interest in crafting an all-powerful presidency. He respected the balance-of-power system put in place by the Founding Fathers. And he was particularly suspect of the presidential claim to unchecked war-making power (see above).

So against the dark Lincoln who appears in nearly every issue of the Weekly Standard, the Claremont Review of Books and the other laboratory publications of the Neocon movement, let us set the Lincoln of the '40s and '50s: a man sure of the Constitutional order, filled with hope and confident of a new America filled with a greater measure of justice and equality. This is my Lincoln. And this is the vision of Lincoln that emerges from Barack Obama's amazing Springfield, IL speech. I am not often impressed with political speeches. But I am impressed with this one.

(No, this does not constitute an endorsement of Barack Obama or the Democratic Party. Not yet, anyway.)
Posted 9:02 AM by Scott Horton [link]