This February 12 marks the 195th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Once revered as the single greatest American who ever lived, Mr. Lincoln’s popularity has declined over the past few decades.
With the combination of his birthday, General Washington’s birthday, and the elevation of Martin Luther King to the chief god of the pantheon of American idols, Lincoln has been pushed slightly out of the national eye. His reputation has faced two attacks, one from the right, which ranges from southern sympathizers to economic libertarians, and the other from the left, mostly criticizing Lincoln on the race issue.
I believe he is one of the finest specimens ever produced by the United States, and I also believe that he was a thoroughly dishonest person whose command of the English language apparently didn’t include the sentence “We the people of the United States.”
Few politicians have ever been as gifted in the fields of both rhetoric and propaganda as Lincoln was. Even in the 19th century, the golden age of orators (from Daniel Webster to William Jennings Bryan), Lincoln stood apart from the crowd. His speeches were usually well crafted and of a non-hemorrhoid inducing length.
His Gettysburg Address, at a mere 265 words, still stands today as a triumph in oratory. For these feats he is justifiably praised.
The other side of Lincoln, however, is not as flattering. H.L. Mencken had it right when he wrote on the Gettysburg Address, “Let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty not sense.” Lincoln was America’s Bismarck. Like the Iron Chancellor, he transformed a relatively decentralized union of states into a federal state, laying the foundations for the transnational empire which would be developed with the Spanish-American War.
But, of course, the main beef most have with the 16th president is his conduct of the War Between the States.
I will simply lay out that I believe the South had a right to secede and that I believe the southern United States would have been better off as their own country (and probably would be better off today).
Lincoln’s war was, in a way, reminiscent of Bush’s war with Iraq. Both republican war lords, the first and possibly last of their party to hold the throne of Washington. Both of their wars were fought despite European attempts to broker a negotiated settlement, with little evidence that the opposing nation was a threat to the aggressor (no one seriously believed the armies of the Confederacy, despite brilliant generalship, could ever invade and conquer the North). After all, the Confederates were merely fighting for self-determination to continue a way of life that would have died out before the turn of the century regardless of government action.
Of course, Jefferson Davis et al were not homicidal maniacs like Saddam Hussein, nor was Mr. Lincoln anywhere close to the staggering imbecile who currently swaggers through the Oval Office (a good thing for his cause, because, had a man of Bush’s caliber been in charge of the war effort, we might as well all be living under the Stainless Banner).
The Civil War was the first modern war. While both sides committed atrocities, it was northern generals under Lincoln’s command that wreaked the greatest havoc. I trust in the intelligence of the Reveille’s readers that I need not regale them on the conduct of General Butler in Louisiana, or General Sherman through Georgia and South Carolina.
Also, one cannot but note Lincoln’s intolerance of dissent. I’ve said a great deal about Mr. Bush and his war in Iraq, but unlike Lincoln, who suspended Habeas Corpus and arrested dissidents, Bush hasn’t followed his predecessor’s steps. Lincoln brought this country into the modern age. He destroyed the Old South, whose high culture in Virginia had, by the time of Lincoln’s death, given the nation seven of its 16 presidents, one of its greatest writers and a military elite that had served the republic well. Were it not for his death, I scarcely believe that he would have been elevated to sainthood.
Still, in the end, he is a tragic figure. A man with great talents who served, regrettably, the side in the wrong.