July 17, 2024 • 40 mins
Season 1 of "In the Room Where It Happened" focuses on America's defining father, Abraham Lincoln. In episode three, former D.C Mayor, Sharon Pratt speaks with historian and scholar Dr. Allen C. Guelzo about how Abraham Lincoln managed public opinion as a president through patience and humility.
Dr. Allen C. Guelzo is Senior Research Scholar at the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. He is the author of several books about the Civil War and early-nineteenth-century American history. He is a recipient of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize for Military History and has been awarded the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize three times.
Dr. Allen C. Guelzo is Senior Research Scholar at the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. He is the author of several books about the Civil War and early-nineteenth-century American history. He is a recipient of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize for Military History and has been awarded the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize three times.
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Abraham Lincoln almost has semi deity statusin America. Yes, And of course
you could say it's the confluence ofhow he died, you know, I
mean it was holy weak, youknow, etc. But you in your
work I gather speak to how heframed his public pronouncements in many ways,
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or they were inspired in many waysby his own reflections on spirituality. Even
though so, maybe could you helpus understand that a little better. Lincoln
is an unusual combination of ideas.On the one hand, he has raised
very seriously religious environment, and hecarries with him the impress of that raising
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all through his life. He's thesort of person who can easily, readily,
without difficult to quote the Bible atparticularly important moments. He will frame
his great argument against slavery in termsof its offense to natural law and to
revealed religion. And as president,he has more to say on the subject
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of God's providence in God's direction ofpublic affairs than almost any other president,
maybe in fact all the other presidentscombined. I mean, especially in his
second inaugural address. That's the closestthing that you get from a political figure
in America that could amount to asermon. It's a remarkable document. So
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you find, on the one hand, in Lincoln, so much of what
he does publicly in private is boundup with and reflects his interests in religious
questions. And yet always with AbrahamLincoln, there's an end yet, as
the man is of a very complicatedman. The end yet is the fact
that he never joins a church orreligious congregation, never makes any commitment.
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We have no record that he's everbaptized, takes communion, does this or
that in any formal religious way.And he did that not accidentally. He
was very conscious of the political pricethat he paid for not having that kind
of religious identity. When he wasrunning for Congress back in eighteen forty seven,
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his opponent, his rival Peter Cartwright, made a lot of hay out
of that to voters in Illinois's howcan you? How can you vote for
this man Lincoln? He is anunbeliever, he's an infidel. You can't
trust him. And he could havetaken very easily a short circuit them.
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Given who Abraham Lincoln was, Wasthere any pastor or board of l who
would refuse an application from him frommembership. No, they weave him in.
Yeah, sure. Sure, henever does that, never tries to
do it, And when people tryto press him on religious questions about himself,
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he'll usually divert the answer in someother direction. And is that because
you think his thinking is so pureand authentic and therefore he wasn't prepared to
be expedient about it all or what? I think that's a large measure of
it. I think that's where thetwo parts of this intersect. He was
raised very stern, strict Calvinist.Nothing happens in the world except God makes
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it happen. Now, what thatmeant was that in his personal life,
if he believed that he was whatCalvinism would tell you you are, and
that is a sinner. You don'tmake yourself better by your own efforts,
you don't work your way, Youhave to wait for God to move.
He had enough integrity and honesty withinhimself to say, I haven't felt God
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move me in that direction. ThereforeI'm not going to try and claim it,
and I'm certainly not going to tryto advertise myself falsely. So it's
exactly that integrity that brings those twoparts of Lincoln and his internal life together.
But it also makes him a puzzle. After his death, his law
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partner William Herndon interviewed David Davis,who had been the judge out on the
Illinois eighth Judicial Circuit and who Lincolnappoints to the Supreme Court in eighteen sixty
two, and Herndon said, whatabout Lincoln's religion? And Davis replied,
I don't know anything about Lincoln's religion, and neither does anybody else because he
just never would talk about it topeople. So he keeps so much of
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that back. He keeps it backwell personally, yes, there's a certain
prudential aspect to it. He doesn'twant to give people sticks to beat him
with public, But at the sametime, he also doesn't want to talk
about it because for him, thereis a very intense wrestle. There's a
very intense confrontation within himself that he'sdealing with because he has convinced the way
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he's been taught that if God isgoing to accept you, then God is
going to make that movement. You'renot going to be able to do it
yourself. You just see that runthrough his life straight to the end.
So a lot of people Doctor Guesthave suggested that Lincoln turn, for example,
at the Gettysburg Address to the Declarationof Independence, because he could hardly
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reference the Constitution at that point,because by Ben the notion was we were
going to significantly define this civil war, not by regional differences, but oh
the issue of the moral issue ofemancipation. But yet you're suggested, and
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some of what you've written that thatwas always a core of his thinking.
Oh that, and how was that? I mean, Wood drove him to
embrace the document that was not bindingas he That's right, central mantra of
the country. That's right. Imean, if you get pulled over by
a state trooper for speeding on theturnpike and start quoting the Declaration of Independence,
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it is not going to get youanything, is it. Right now?
Well, here's here's the thing.What Lincoln saw in the Declaration of
Independence. It was something he resonatedwith himself and which he believed made others
resonate too, just just by theidea itself. He said, on his
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inaugural journey to Washington, he stopsat Independence Hall gives a speech there.
Since February twenty second, eighteen sixtyone, he says, I have never
had a thought politically that did notoriginate in that hall, meaning the Declaration
of Independence. For him, thedeclaration that was the touchstone of American ideas,
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and he takes people to the Declarationover and over and over and over
again. He does it all throughhis great debates with Stephen A. Douglas
in eighteen fifty eight. Basically heasks how can Douglas apologize as he does
for slave own it and then reconcilethat with the Declaration of Independence. In
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one of his greatest speeches, thisis July tenth, eighteen fifty eight,
he says, half the people inthis country have come from someplace else.
Maybe one half of the country canstill say, yeah, we're sons of
the American Revolution or daughters of theAmerican Revolution. But the other half of
the country they've come from other placesaround the world. They don't feel any
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living family connection to the revolution.But he said, when they read in
the Declaration those words that all menare created equal, then he said,
they feel that they are flesh ofthe flesh and blood of the blood of
those men that wrote the declaration,and so they are. He said,
that's the electric cord that unites alllovers of liberty for him what Jefferson called
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self evident, as these truths thatwe attest to for him self evident,
that was there. You didn't haveto prove it. It was like geometry.
You start out with an axiom,you don't have to prove it.
It's there, It's true. Everyonesees it and recognizes at the moment they
read it. And that loyalty tothe declaration runs straight through his political life,
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runs straight through his presidency and whenhe begins to Gettysburg address where he's
trying to explain to people, whyare we fighting this terrible war? Yeah,
it has cost the lives of allthese young men who are buried here
in this cemetery in Gettysburg. Hesays, we were conceived in liberty and
dedicated to a proposition that all menare created equal. That's where we begin
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as a nation. That's where wethrive as a nation. That's the goal
to which we should be driving asa nation. And if we'll do that,
if we'll dedicate ourselves to that propositionthe same way these soldiers did,
and this nation will have a newbirth of freedom and government of the people,
by the people, for the people. Chaumon parish from the earth.
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The bright line of the declaration justruns straight through Lincoln's public life. Well,
you know, I can come backto it, but you know,
I found it interesting that the threemen who were so pivotal for bringing the
capital to this region, and theywere typical of those who were at that
constitutional convention, were a privileged class. Where's the three men now who we
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identify as pivotal to it moving intoa meaningful metropolis. All people who are
born into a hard scrabble life.Lincoln nothing, Douglas almost less than not
think. And this is as grant. I mean, they are living proof
of that free you know, andso they may have a more of a
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personal intellectual emotional investment, you know. And in the Declaration of Independence.
But let me ask you if Imade something else, you said that in
a faithful lightning, that it wasalmost inevitable that we would reach a point
of a disunion. That when youthink of how we began and how we
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saw ourselves and so many people sawthemselves as their country being South Carolina,
North Carolina or whatever, not reallythe union. Can you sort of elaborate
on that that it was almost inevitablethat we would reach this point as we
did in eighteen sixty one. Well, I'll shay one thing about inevitability.
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I use that as a metaphor actuallynothing, nothing is inevitable, so much
about contingency and change in history thatit's always a good idea to keep your
eye on the fact that history canturn on a dime, turn on a
single decision, They can turn onwhat a single individual does. So I
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keep that in view. But atthe same time, what I said in
Faithful Life was the people who createthe Constitution, they were not profits.
They did not have a glass bowl. They could look at it and see
the future, and they had todeal with what they had and how they
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could see things going forward as bestthey could. Here's here's a case,
an endpoint, and that is theissue of slavery. In the Constitutional Convention.
Half the delegates who come to Philadelphiain seventeen eighty seven are slave owners,
and the half of the cunty treeis committed to the slave system.
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In fact, when the Constitutional Conventionconvenes in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven,
all but one state of the Unionlegalize a slavery north and South alike.
We sometimes talk about well, theNortherners were this and the Southerners with this
not in sanet eighty seven. Thisis a surprise for people. So they
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come to the Constitutional Convention and onething which eventually becomes very apparent is they
feel that there is a living contradictionbetween slavery and what they're trying to do
in this constitution, and they don'thave an easy time of it. Some
of them will stand up on thefloor of the Convention, like gouvernor Morris,
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and they will say, slavery hasthe testimony of Heaven against it,
and we are going to pay aprice for this if we do not eradicate
it. Same time, you willget someone like the people the relatives,
like the Pinkneys from South Carolina standingup side. Well, if you're going
to try to touch slavery, we'releaving. We're not going to cooperate.
Maybe we'll go back with the English, who knows, but we're not going
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to cooperate with this union. Whatdo they do? They sit down and
try to think, well, whereis it going? And that's the moment
when you get people like Oliver Ellsworth, Roger Sherman, even James Madison.
We'll stand up on the floor ofthe convention, fully convinced of this,
and they say, look, asbest we can see here in seventeen eighty
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seven, slavery is a dying institution. It's going out, and it's going
to go out fast. In afew years, there's not going to be
any slavery in America, because that'swhere we see the trends going. So
let's not talk about slavery in theConstitution. Especially, let's not give any
hint that there can be what Madisoncalled and Sherman called property in men.
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Just not even going to use theword. So the ears from now,
when people read the Constitution, therewill be no trace of this thing called
slave. Bring it. They reallythought that slavery was on the way out
the door, and all they hadto do was let the dying dog die.
And they had they had anticipated theindustrial revolution. They did not anticipated
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the gin for common. So sometimessometimes it is a matter of you don't
see what the future is going totake, the direction it's going to say.
But if I is it correct toI mean, slavery is definitely intrinsic
to all of this. It's,as you know, as Lincoln says,
and as second inaugural. I mean, let's let's let's deal with what it
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was this was about. But thereis also this notion federalism, which you
know, I mean, so,I mean, you've rejected this imposing monarchy
of breat Britain. This is whereyou people, you know, they're part
view and probably was not as easyto accept a replacement of that, you
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know, with this new quote unquotefederal government and not wanting to surrender power
to this. So so much ofthat seemed to be at the heart of
it, I mean as well.Part of one of the under you know,
the undercarrents of that was around whatwhat whether you'd accept slavery or not.
Are you going to let it slavery, explain it expanded to the west
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or not. But at the atthe heart of it was it not I
mean, we are not going tohave an imposing federal presence. And to
me, what is so already thinkabout it, and I'll ask you the
real first president to establish that federalpresidence is seemingly Abraham Lincoln. Well,
to a certain extent, this istrue, although I will say that there
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really is a very steady arc ofrecognition of federal authority okay, which moves
up as early as Washington's president,say, is where he first start to
see the first glimmers of it.Sometimes we think, oh, while Lincoln
becomes president, he asked a wagea civil war. He's got a muster
the forces of the nation in defenseof the federal government on the federal constitution,
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and that's where everything changes. Actually, the change has been very,
very incremental, but it's been happening. And you see it with, for
instance, Alexander Hamilton and the proposalsfor tariffs for a national bank. You
see it. You see it ina rather odd ball way in Andrew Jackson
and the way Jackson responds to theSouth Carolina threats of nullification. Basically,
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you're saying, our federal Union,it must be preserved. That's the rebukey
hands out to John C. Calhoun. So by the time we get to
Lincoln, what we're dealing with isfirst of all, a man who is
but politically speaking, he's a Wig. That's where his political allegiance begins.
And the Whigs were always people whoput the nation first. And if you
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put the nation first, then thefederal aspect of our government that becomes a
vital aspect of things when Lincoln becomespresident. All right, the Whig Party
is dead and buried after eighteen fiftysix, and Lincoln has now attached himself
to this new Republican anti slavery party. But in truth, when he's president,
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he's really still a good and hehimself says, I'm an old every
Clay Whig. So he takes thosethree great proposals of the Whigs about a
national banking system, about tariffs,and about national support for infrastructure, and
he puts all three of those intoplace as his domestic agenda, you know,
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Madam maryor a lot of the timeswhen we think about Lincoln, we
think about him as the great wartimepresident in the Civil War, and all
the drums and the bugles drown outthis very extensive domestic program that Lincoln is
able to get through Congress. Hegets the biggest infrastructure build in the American
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history past, and that's the TranscontinentalRailroad. He gets a national banking system
adopted that standardizes the United States currency, and he actually persuades Congress to impose
the highest protective tarant rates in Americanhistory. So this is someone who is
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Yes, he does some very dramaticthings that way. But it's been building
toward that. It's been building towardsit authored his life. It's been building
through examples of people like Henry Clay, for whom, to Lincoln, Clay
was his bo ideal of a statesmanhoping toward that. I think there's a
certain inevitability. I think maybe I'mgoing to shitting out on a limb hear,
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but I think the entire idea ofhaving the Constitutional Convention was a move
towards greater federal authority. Just theidea that you are creating this union that
is going to be a more perfectunion than the Articles of Confederation, that
is going to provide for the generalwelfare, that is going to ensure domestic
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tranquility, and above all which isput into place by the authority of what
the states, no, we thepeople of the United States. That in
itself is a step towards the recognitionof national authority. So from there there
is a gradual movement up. AndLincoln stands, he stands at the top
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of a very long staircase that isbeing built towards that. In eighteen sixty
one, now we'll taken Yeah,no, I understand I appreciate that when
you think about it, I've hadWe've had contemporary personalities who said they could
have cut a deal and did thecivil war really You almost do have to
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ask, though, how on earthdid people remain so tenacious that that was
an awful war and a very personalwar. What was the driving force?
I mean, what kept them goingto do that for four years? People
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who think or who thought that thatsomehow you could deal your way out of
this crisis and compromise your way outof this crisis totally underestimated the almost fanatical
dedication of the Southern States to slaveryas a system. There are a multiplicity
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of causal elements at work federalism andwhat I mean by that is a wrong
view of what federalism is that createa part of this situation. Sectionalism created
part of this situation. But atthe end of the day, it is
slavery which is the key factor.Takes slavery out of the equation and there's
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no civil war. Leave slavery inthere. I don't care how many other
deals you cut, how many othercompromises you make, you are going to
come to war. Now. That'swhere I'm starting to sound inevitable. But
as long as slavery is there,Slavery is an act of defiance against the
Declaration of Independence, against American identityitself. It is an act of defiance
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at any authority that tries to sayyou may not own another human being the
way you would own a horse ora pig or a dog. You may
not know. That kind of defianceof that authority. That's what feeds these
people. And yes, it givesus a war, a four years duration,
and hundreds of thousands of deaths.The estimates vary, probably somewhere between
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six hundred and fifteen seven hundred andfifty thousand deaths direct or indirect. You,
when you do that by the percentagesin today's United States population, you'd
be talking about the deaths of somethinglike fifteen to twenty million people. This
is the price we pay in theCivil War. No wonder when Lincoln speaks
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in the second Inaugural about the causesof the war. Yes, he identifies
slavery, and then he takes onestep further because he knew what people would
conclude when he said that. Peoplewho were hearing him would conclude, yeah,
yeah, we Northerners there, innocentof that, it's those Southerners who
are guilty of slavery. Lincoln says, no, no, no. The
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war has been of such catastrophic dimensionsthat we can only understand why God has
visited this on us if we understandthe North and South alike have both been
implicated in the evil of slavery.And if you don't like hearing that,
Lincoln says, if that offends you, then don't take it up with me,
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because that is what God says.And he asks the question, shall
not the judge of all the earthdo? Right? Who's going to disagree
with him on that point? So, yes, he sees slavery, he
does think being so important because thepeople that clung to it, oh my
goodness, that clung to it withthis almost manic, fanatical determination. And
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you know, the sad part isthat that determination does not disappear at appomatics.
It goes underground for a while,and then it surfaces in new forms
of oppression and manipulation. And it'salmost as though we get to thirty years
after the Civil War, we getto Pleasi Bress Burtisom and you scratch your
head and you wonder, what didwe fight this war, for I thought
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the result was supposed to be somewherein a different direction. Yet that stubbornness,
that refuse to yield to the basicpoints of the Declaration of Independence,
that not only cost us so muchin the way of carnage in the Civil
War itself, but it cost usdecades that led us to lynching, It
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led us to Jim Crow, leadsus even today to all the racial conundrums
and controversies that we deal with oreven in our own lives at this moment.
No, I think Isabelle Harkerson herbook cast I found that the most
useful way to deal with the constructof it, which is a cast system
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where everybody buys them to it,and even if you are a victim,
you kind of buy into it.But you know that also highlights Lincoln.
I mean, he moved from beinga man who morally opposed slavery, but
struggled with the notion of two racesbeing able to coexist, two actually speaking
of a franchise. No, impossiblythe reason why he was sassinated, many
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believe, but John Wilkes Booth whosaid that, yes, that he heard
Lincoln say in his last speech onApril eleventh, eighteen sixty five. We've
got to move towards extending the franchiseto the free slaves, and Booth tarnsts
accomplished David Harold, and he says, I know what that means. That
means black voting rights. I'll puthim through. Does lashbeech? He'll give
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three days later. What does Boothdo? Yeah? Yeah, So before
I ask you, but well,do you think Frederick Douglass, though,
played a larger than life role inpushing frauding him one, if nothing else
by having African American men in themilitary, which I think would have to
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is. I believe with George Washingtonhaving William Lees Ballad with him in the
war, it makes you think differentlyabout the humanity and dignity of a person.
I would have to believe. Iremember this one letter that a Hessian
captain wrote back home during the revolutionbecause he was he was really puzzled by
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the He had never seen anything likethis before. He says, you know,
every regiment of these American rebels hasgot black people in. It was
like, what, how can thatprobably be? But what he was describing
was something he actually saw on theground, and the revolution well, for
Lincoln. I'll say, I'll saytwo things about Lincoln that way. One
is, nobody ever pushes Lincoln todo anything that's Abrahamlet you don't push him.
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He might push you, but youdon't push him. He moves on
his own speed. He moves onhis own chewel he was. He was
not the kind of person that youcould put into a corner and make go
in a certain direction. That simplywas not part of his character. But
one thing's that Lincoln sees in FrederickDouglas something very akin to himself. You
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know, there's an experience that theyboth had. They never talked about to
each other, at least the nineo one, but they both had a
common experience. What was this.When Lincoln was oh fifteen, sixteen seventeen,
he had this little side hustle.He had a little boat that he
would use to paddle out to themiddle of the Ohio River, and he
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would carry passengers out there in thatboat because that was where they flag down
the passing steamboats. Well, oneday two men come running down in a
hurry and they say, take usout to midstream. We want to get
on board that steamboat. So hetakes them out there, and when they
get on the boat, they turnaround and to Lincoln, they both flip
him a silver half dollar. Lincolnlooks at that and he says, I've
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earned that all on my own.I can keep that. And Lincoln he
told that story repeatedly, and hesaid, from that point life looked fairer
and more attractive to me. FrederickDouglas has almost the same thing when he
arrives in New Bedford. It's gotto figure out what to do. And
he walks down the street and awoman hails him and says, could you
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come in here and help. Shewants him to split some wood, which
he does. She turns around andgives him a dollar. He looks at
that and says, I've never beenpaid for my work before. I can
keep this. For both Douglas andLincoln, there was this common experience of
starting from nothing, sometimes listened,and then moving up from that. And
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Douglas said years later that one ofthe things that he found most remarkable about
meeting Lincoln for the first time wasthat Lincoln Lincoln made no reference whatever to
a Douglas called the difference of colorbetween the two men. He said,
he was the first great man inAmerica I ever met, who never made
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any reference that way. Instead,Douglas said, what I had was the
clear sense that with Lincoln and Isaw in each other was someone who had
come up from nothing or next tonothing or less than nothing, and who
had achieved much and who wanted tosee others achieve the same thing. And
that creates this bond between Lincoln andDouglas that will lead Douglas to make visits
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to the White House. After Lincolngives his second inaugural address, Douglas gets
in the line of visitors at theWhite House. Lincoln sees him. He
says, there is my friend,Douglas. What did you think of the
speech? Douglas. Douglas sort oftaken aback the prison of the United States
is asking me what I think ofhis Speechman and Douglas it was a sacred
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effort that captures something really remarkable inthese two men. And years later,
years later, Douglas gives this speak. I mean, he makes his living
basically as a public orator. Asa public speaker, he has a speech
that he gives, Oh my goodness, some two hundred and twenty times as
career called self made men. Wellhe's talking about himself, but who is
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the primary example that he's offering AbrahamLincoln. And you almost have the sense
that in Douglas's mind, he's almostjoined himself and Lincoln together as though they
were one kind of personality, thekind of personality that can only flourish in
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the American environment. So for him, that connection to Lincoln is an extremely
important thing, and it's important forLincoln because Lincoln wants Douglas to help him
recruit black soldiers for the Union Army. And yeah, and Howard, I
said that the role of Frederick DovesLincoln continued to grow, and he had
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a moral compass, and you haveto appreciate one does appreciate that, I
sortinly do. Somebody who's a politicalpersonality is as was Abraham Lincoln, very
political, but who had this moralcompass, but had the capacity to learn
and growth, capacity to listen,capacity to grasp what is it that this
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person is bringing to the conversation thatI may have missed. And we're all
going to miss something because we havelimited you know, our life experiences are
different. And that's you know,that's that's what I meant. And he
had to get there in a sufficientway to pull a country to follow him.
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I mean a country that, whatevertheir position was wedded to this cast
system. Is you know something we'venot totally you know, liberated ourselves from
Lincoln. Always hard out a sharpeye, or what is possible in public
opinion? I mean, he oncemade this comment that, especially in a
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democratic environment, public opinion is everything. You have to bring public opinion with
you. You can't defy it,because otherwise it will overwhelm you, It'll
crush you. All right, Howdo you develop public opinion for him?
First of all, it takes patience, and this is a man of great
patience. It takes resilience, andthis is a man who can absorb a
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lot of punishment. It's remarkable inthe politician. He's also a man of
humility. He doesn't he doesn't getup on his own high horse. He's
willing to see other people take creditfor things if it will move the overall
moment and cause in the right direction. But he has such a clear,
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sophisticated view of things. There wereno polls, in new Gallop polls or
things like that in his day.He had to rely on what people might
tell him and what he might read, but he had He had this coup
of the eye that allowed him toidentify what was important and what wasn't.
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Out of the great mass of newsand information that would come his way,
he could pick out the really importantthings that would say, well, this
is where we're going in six months, this is where we'll be in eighteen
months. And one of his oneof his political friends who paid a visit
to him in the White House,who was who was very despairing at one
point, went to Lincoln and said, oh, whoe is us, Lincoln.
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Lincoln got this little notebook out ofhis out of his coat, and
the endto this notebook, Lincoln hadpasted these little excerpts from a newspaper account
here, from a convention report here. He pasted them all together, and
he walked his friend through and says, this is what this is where we're
headed six months from now, thisis where we're going to be. Here's
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where the trends are taking us.His friend left the office. This is
great, I'm optimistic. Now.Why Lincoln had that sense of recognition of
what was really important and where thingswere really going, and he understood how
to develop that and how to nurturethat, and he's always thinking, is
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a very cautious person, but atthe same time, he's always thinking,
how can we keep the momentum?He said to members of Congress at one
point, he's very he's very impatientwith the members of the border state delegations
because these are states that have stayedin the Union, four of them,
but they're still places that legalize slavery. He says, will you not recognize
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the signs of the times? Willyou not see where we're going? Emancipate?
Now? Do it now, becausesooner or later the war is going
to end slavery, and you'll endup the losers for it. So take
the action now. He sees wherethings are going. He understands where the
movement is, and he wants topush the country and pull the country so
(35:02):
that people are able to grasp that. And as you know, by the
end of his life, you seeso much of that. One person who
gave a eulogy for Lincoln four daysafter Lincoln's death, he was a man
from Massachusetts. He said that hehad the impression that Lincoln never thought of
(35:23):
himself as a president, as aruler who's handing down declarations to people.
He always had the sense that Lincolnthought of himself as the attorney general for
the people. He was representing theinterests of the people to the people themselves.
He was a great persuader. Well, he was a trial lawyer,
(35:44):
he should be, but he wasstill a great persuader. And you see
that all through his speeches, yousee it through his writings. As president,
he was tremendous at pulling people alongin ways that they themselves would never
have seen them moving four years before, well before I ask you about where
his position is within that pantheontic presidence. Do you think that his semi deity
(36:08):
status may lie in the fact,and maybe this was providential. I can
tend to think so that the warends on Palm Sunday. By happenstance,
John Brookes Booth ends up finding outhe's going to be at Forts Theater on
Good Friday, and the fatal shotoccurs. Then it's Holy Week. I
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mean of people are gathering at Senagogue'sthat day dies and then the rest of
the country, primarily Christians, gatheredthat Sunday on Easter, where in each
instance he's compared to Moses and ofcourse to Christ I mean Moore's been written
about him than any other president.When we gathered now to express our hopes
(36:55):
and aspirations, we do it inthat we're standing in front of his monument.
Do you think he is a providentialpresident? Do you think that it
was just happenstance that he has thisposition in our collective thinking? Well,
I'll preface my response by saying,first of all, is a caution that
(37:19):
the Lord has not revealed it tome yet. I have not had a
revelation that says Abraham Lincoln was mychosen representatives, So I haven't. I
haven't gotten that revelation. But havingsaid that, I would then go on
to say that my best estimate ofthings is yes, yes, And in
(37:43):
many ways, think about it thisway, I'm out a mayor. Look
at the presidents who occupied the officebefore Lincoln. Let's see what a roster
James Knox Polk, John Tyler,Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan,
What a lineup of losers? Andat that point you think, is
(38:09):
this the best the country can do? And then, at this moment of
stupendous crisis, who is elected President? Abraham Lincoln? And it was almost
as though at the moment when weneeded someone like him the most, we
(38:29):
got him. One famous German PrinceAuto on Bismarck. I'm not in the
habit of quoting as an authority.Bismarck once said that the Lord looks out
for fools, drunks, and theUnited States of America. And I have
(38:51):
to say, all right, I'mnot sure he meant that as a compliment,
but I'm going to take it thatway, because if there's anything it
seems to me that demonstrates that AbrahamLincoln, what good thing did we do,
what good thing did we represent thatat the moment when we needed exactly
that kind of leader, we gotit. Yeah, this is very natural.
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It was providential for us to addthe great honor as we celebrate this
our sixteenth president, to have achance to have this conversation with you,
doctor Glzel. So it's just beenmagnificent. So appreciate your scholarship, and
so appreciate your sharing your insights andscholarship with us here at IPPH. I'm
(39:38):
always happy to do so. Andit doesn't take much. You put a
nickel in my meter, I'll talkabout Lincoln all day. Well, thank
you, so much. We reallyappreciate it, all right, thank you,
I appreciate that, right, thankyou for that good word. The
Abraham Lincoln almost has semi deity statusin America. Yes, And of course
you could say it's the confluence ofhow he died, you know, I
mean it was holy weak, youknow, etc. But you in your
work I gather speak to how heframed his public pronouncements in many ways,
(00:26):
or they were inspired in many waysby his own reflections on spirituality. Even
though so, maybe could you helpus understand that a little better. Lincoln
is an unusual combination of ideas.On the one hand, he has raised
very seriously religious environment, and hecarries with him the impress of that raising
(00:55):
all through his life. He's thesort of person who can easily, readily,
without difficult to quote the Bible atparticularly important moments. He will frame
his great argument against slavery in termsof its offense to natural law and to
revealed religion. And as president,he has more to say on the subject
(01:19):
of God's providence in God's direction ofpublic affairs than almost any other president,
maybe in fact all the other presidentscombined. I mean, especially in his
second inaugural address. That's the closestthing that you get from a political figure
in America that could amount to asermon. It's a remarkable document. So
(01:42):
you find, on the one hand, in Lincoln, so much of what
he does publicly in private is boundup with and reflects his interests in religious
questions. And yet always with AbrahamLincoln, there's an end yet, as
the man is of a very complicatedman. The end yet is the fact
that he never joins a church orreligious congregation, never makes any commitment.
(02:08):
We have no record that he's everbaptized, takes communion, does this or
that in any formal religious way.And he did that not accidentally. He
was very conscious of the political pricethat he paid for not having that kind
of religious identity. When he wasrunning for Congress back in eighteen forty seven,
(02:31):
his opponent, his rival Peter Cartwright, made a lot of hay out
of that to voters in Illinois's howcan you? How can you vote for
this man Lincoln? He is anunbeliever, he's an infidel. You can't
trust him. And he could havetaken very easily a short circuit them.
(02:53):
Given who Abraham Lincoln was, Wasthere any pastor or board of l who
would refuse an application from him frommembership. No, they weave him in.
Yeah, sure. Sure, henever does that, never tries to
do it, And when people tryto press him on religious questions about himself,
(03:15):
he'll usually divert the answer in someother direction. And is that because
you think his thinking is so pureand authentic and therefore he wasn't prepared to
be expedient about it all or what? I think that's a large measure of
it. I think that's where thetwo parts of this intersect. He was
raised very stern, strict Calvinist.Nothing happens in the world except God makes
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it happen. Now, what thatmeant was that in his personal life,
if he believed that he was whatCalvinism would tell you you are, and
that is a sinner. You don'tmake yourself better by your own efforts,
you don't work your way, Youhave to wait for God to move.
He had enough integrity and honesty withinhimself to say, I haven't felt God
(04:04):
move me in that direction. ThereforeI'm not going to try and claim it,
and I'm certainly not going to tryto advertise myself falsely. So it's
exactly that integrity that brings those twoparts of Lincoln and his internal life together.
But it also makes him a puzzle. After his death, his law
(04:26):
partner William Herndon interviewed David Davis,who had been the judge out on the
Illinois eighth Judicial Circuit and who Lincolnappoints to the Supreme Court in eighteen sixty
two, and Herndon said, whatabout Lincoln's religion? And Davis replied,
I don't know anything about Lincoln's religion, and neither does anybody else because he
just never would talk about it topeople. So he keeps so much of
(04:50):
that back. He keeps it backwell personally, yes, there's a certain
prudential aspect to it. He doesn'twant to give people sticks to beat him
with public, But at the sametime, he also doesn't want to talk
about it because for him, thereis a very intense wrestle. There's a
very intense confrontation within himself that he'sdealing with because he has convinced the way
(05:14):
he's been taught that if God isgoing to accept you, then God is
going to make that movement. You'renot going to be able to do it
yourself. You just see that runthrough his life straight to the end.
So a lot of people Doctor Guesthave suggested that Lincoln turn, for example,
at the Gettysburg Address to the Declarationof Independence, because he could hardly
(05:36):
reference the Constitution at that point,because by Ben the notion was we were
going to significantly define this civil war, not by regional differences, but oh
the issue of the moral issue ofemancipation. But yet you're suggested, and
(05:56):
some of what you've written that thatwas always a core of his thinking.
Oh that, and how was that? I mean, Wood drove him to
embrace the document that was not bindingas he That's right, central mantra of
the country. That's right. Imean, if you get pulled over by
a state trooper for speeding on theturnpike and start quoting the Declaration of Independence,
(06:17):
it is not going to get youanything, is it. Right now?
Well, here's here's the thing.What Lincoln saw in the Declaration of
Independence. It was something he resonatedwith himself and which he believed made others
resonate too, just just by theidea itself. He said, on his
(06:39):
inaugural journey to Washington, he stopsat Independence Hall gives a speech there.
Since February twenty second, eighteen sixtyone, he says, I have never
had a thought politically that did notoriginate in that hall, meaning the Declaration
of Independence. For him, thedeclaration that was the touchstone of American ideas,
(07:00):
and he takes people to the Declarationover and over and over and over
again. He does it all throughhis great debates with Stephen A. Douglas
in eighteen fifty eight. Basically heasks how can Douglas apologize as he does
for slave own it and then reconcilethat with the Declaration of Independence. In
(07:20):
one of his greatest speeches, thisis July tenth, eighteen fifty eight,
he says, half the people inthis country have come from someplace else.
Maybe one half of the country canstill say, yeah, we're sons of
the American Revolution or daughters of theAmerican Revolution. But the other half of
the country they've come from other placesaround the world. They don't feel any
(07:43):
living family connection to the revolution.But he said, when they read in
the Declaration those words that all menare created equal, then he said,
they feel that they are flesh ofthe flesh and blood of the blood of
those men that wrote the declaration,and so they are. He said,
that's the electric cord that unites alllovers of liberty for him what Jefferson called
(08:09):
self evident, as these truths thatwe attest to for him self evident,
that was there. You didn't haveto prove it. It was like geometry.
You start out with an axiom,you don't have to prove it.
It's there, It's true. Everyonesees it and recognizes at the moment they
read it. And that loyalty tothe declaration runs straight through his political life,
(08:31):
runs straight through his presidency and whenhe begins to Gettysburg address where he's
trying to explain to people, whyare we fighting this terrible war? Yeah,
it has cost the lives of allthese young men who are buried here
in this cemetery in Gettysburg. Hesays, we were conceived in liberty and
dedicated to a proposition that all menare created equal. That's where we begin
(08:56):
as a nation. That's where wethrive as a nation. That's the goal
to which we should be driving asa nation. And if we'll do that,
if we'll dedicate ourselves to that propositionthe same way these soldiers did,
and this nation will have a newbirth of freedom and government of the people,
by the people, for the people. Chaumon parish from the earth.
(09:20):
The bright line of the declaration justruns straight through Lincoln's public life. Well,
you know, I can come backto it, but you know,
I found it interesting that the threemen who were so pivotal for bringing the
capital to this region, and theywere typical of those who were at that
constitutional convention, were a privileged class. Where's the three men now who we
(09:45):
identify as pivotal to it moving intoa meaningful metropolis. All people who are
born into a hard scrabble life.Lincoln nothing, Douglas almost less than not
think. And this is as grant. I mean, they are living proof
of that free you know, andso they may have a more of a
(10:09):
personal intellectual emotional investment, you know. And in the Declaration of Independence.
But let me ask you if Imade something else, you said that in
a faithful lightning, that it wasalmost inevitable that we would reach a point
of a disunion. That when youthink of how we began and how we
(10:31):
saw ourselves and so many people sawthemselves as their country being South Carolina,
North Carolina or whatever, not reallythe union. Can you sort of elaborate
on that that it was almost inevitablethat we would reach this point as we
did in eighteen sixty one. Well, I'll shay one thing about inevitability.
(10:56):
I use that as a metaphor actuallynothing, nothing is inevitable, so much
about contingency and change in history thatit's always a good idea to keep your
eye on the fact that history canturn on a dime, turn on a
single decision, They can turn onwhat a single individual does. So I
(11:18):
keep that in view. But atthe same time, what I said in
Faithful Life was the people who createthe Constitution, they were not profits.
They did not have a glass bowl. They could look at it and see
the future, and they had todeal with what they had and how they
(11:41):
could see things going forward as bestthey could. Here's here's a case,
an endpoint, and that is theissue of slavery. In the Constitutional Convention.
Half the delegates who come to Philadelphiain seventeen eighty seven are slave owners,
and the half of the cunty treeis committed to the slave system.
(12:01):
In fact, when the Constitutional Conventionconvenes in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven,
all but one state of the Unionlegalize a slavery north and South alike.
We sometimes talk about well, theNortherners were this and the Southerners with this
not in sanet eighty seven. Thisis a surprise for people. So they
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come to the Constitutional Convention and onething which eventually becomes very apparent is they
feel that there is a living contradictionbetween slavery and what they're trying to do
in this constitution, and they don'thave an easy time of it. Some
of them will stand up on thefloor of the Convention, like gouvernor Morris,
(12:43):
and they will say, slavery hasthe testimony of Heaven against it,
and we are going to pay aprice for this if we do not eradicate
it. Same time, you willget someone like the people the relatives,
like the Pinkneys from South Carolina standingup side. Well, if you're going
to try to touch slavery, we'releaving. We're not going to cooperate.
Maybe we'll go back with the English, who knows, but we're not going
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to cooperate with this union. Whatdo they do? They sit down and
try to think, well, whereis it going? And that's the moment
when you get people like Oliver Ellsworth, Roger Sherman, even James Madison.
We'll stand up on the floor ofthe convention, fully convinced of this,
and they say, look, asbest we can see here in seventeen eighty
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seven, slavery is a dying institution. It's going out, and it's going
to go out fast. In afew years, there's not going to be
any slavery in America, because that'swhere we see the trends going. So
let's not talk about slavery in theConstitution. Especially, let's not give any
hint that there can be what Madisoncalled and Sherman called property in men.
(13:50):
Just not even going to use theword. So the ears from now,
when people read the Constitution, therewill be no trace of this thing called
slave. Bring it. They reallythought that slavery was on the way out
the door, and all they hadto do was let the dying dog die.
And they had they had anticipated theindustrial revolution. They did not anticipated
(14:18):
the gin for common. So sometimessometimes it is a matter of you don't
see what the future is going totake, the direction it's going to say.
But if I is it correct toI mean, slavery is definitely intrinsic
to all of this. It's,as you know, as Lincoln says,
and as second inaugural. I mean, let's let's let's deal with what it
(14:41):
was this was about. But thereis also this notion federalism, which you
know, I mean, so,I mean, you've rejected this imposing monarchy
of breat Britain. This is whereyou people, you know, they're part
view and probably was not as easyto accept a replacement of that, you
(15:07):
know, with this new quote unquotefederal government and not wanting to surrender power
to this. So so much ofthat seemed to be at the heart of
it, I mean as well.Part of one of the under you know,
the undercarrents of that was around whatwhat whether you'd accept slavery or not.
Are you going to let it slavery, explain it expanded to the west
(15:30):
or not. But at the atthe heart of it was it not I
mean, we are not going tohave an imposing federal presence. And to
me, what is so already thinkabout it, and I'll ask you the
real first president to establish that federalpresidence is seemingly Abraham Lincoln. Well,
to a certain extent, this istrue, although I will say that there
(15:52):
really is a very steady arc ofrecognition of federal authority okay, which moves
up as early as Washington's president,say, is where he first start to
see the first glimmers of it.Sometimes we think, oh, while Lincoln
becomes president, he asked a wagea civil war. He's got a muster
the forces of the nation in defenseof the federal government on the federal constitution,
(16:14):
and that's where everything changes. Actually, the change has been very,
very incremental, but it's been happening. And you see it with, for
instance, Alexander Hamilton and the proposalsfor tariffs for a national bank. You
see it. You see it ina rather odd ball way in Andrew Jackson
and the way Jackson responds to theSouth Carolina threats of nullification. Basically,
(16:41):
you're saying, our federal Union,it must be preserved. That's the rebukey
hands out to John C. Calhoun. So by the time we get to
Lincoln, what we're dealing with isfirst of all, a man who is
but politically speaking, he's a Wig. That's where his political allegiance begins.
And the Whigs were always people whoput the nation first. And if you
(17:02):
put the nation first, then thefederal aspect of our government that becomes a
vital aspect of things when Lincoln becomespresident. All right, the Whig Party
is dead and buried after eighteen fiftysix, and Lincoln has now attached himself
to this new Republican anti slavery party. But in truth, when he's president,
(17:23):
he's really still a good and hehimself says, I'm an old every
Clay Whig. So he takes thosethree great proposals of the Whigs about a
national banking system, about tariffs,and about national support for infrastructure, and
he puts all three of those intoplace as his domestic agenda, you know,
(17:47):
Madam maryor a lot of the timeswhen we think about Lincoln, we
think about him as the great wartimepresident in the Civil War, and all
the drums and the bugles drown outthis very extensive domestic program that Lincoln is
able to get through Congress. Hegets the biggest infrastructure build in the American
(18:07):
history past, and that's the TranscontinentalRailroad. He gets a national banking system
adopted that standardizes the United States currency, and he actually persuades Congress to impose
the highest protective tarant rates in Americanhistory. So this is someone who is
(18:29):
Yes, he does some very dramaticthings that way. But it's been building
toward that. It's been building towardsit authored his life. It's been building
through examples of people like Henry Clay, for whom, to Lincoln, Clay
was his bo ideal of a statesmanhoping toward that. I think there's a
certain inevitability. I think maybe I'mgoing to shitting out on a limb hear,
(18:55):
but I think the entire idea ofhaving the Constitutional Convention was a move
towards greater federal authority. Just theidea that you are creating this union that
is going to be a more perfectunion than the Articles of Confederation, that
is going to provide for the generalwelfare, that is going to ensure domestic
(19:17):
tranquility, and above all which isput into place by the authority of what
the states, no, we thepeople of the United States. That in
itself is a step towards the recognitionof national authority. So from there there
is a gradual movement up. AndLincoln stands, he stands at the top
(19:40):
of a very long staircase that isbeing built towards that. In eighteen sixty
one, now we'll taken Yeah,no, I understand I appreciate that when
you think about it, I've hadWe've had contemporary personalities who said they could
have cut a deal and did thecivil war really You almost do have to
(20:06):
ask, though, how on earthdid people remain so tenacious that that was
an awful war and a very personalwar. What was the driving force?
I mean, what kept them goingto do that for four years? People
(20:26):
who think or who thought that thatsomehow you could deal your way out of
this crisis and compromise your way outof this crisis totally underestimated the almost fanatical
dedication of the Southern States to slaveryas a system. There are a multiplicity
(20:48):
of causal elements at work federalism andwhat I mean by that is a wrong
view of what federalism is that createa part of this situation. Sectionalism created
part of this situation. But atthe end of the day, it is
slavery which is the key factor.Takes slavery out of the equation and there's
(21:11):
no civil war. Leave slavery inthere. I don't care how many other
deals you cut, how many othercompromises you make, you are going to
come to war. Now. That'swhere I'm starting to sound inevitable. But
as long as slavery is there,Slavery is an act of defiance against the
Declaration of Independence, against American identityitself. It is an act of defiance
(21:37):
at any authority that tries to sayyou may not own another human being the
way you would own a horse ora pig or a dog. You may
not know. That kind of defianceof that authority. That's what feeds these
people. And yes, it givesus a war, a four years duration,
and hundreds of thousands of deaths.The estimates vary, probably somewhere between
(22:03):
six hundred and fifteen seven hundred andfifty thousand deaths direct or indirect. You,
when you do that by the percentagesin today's United States population, you'd
be talking about the deaths of somethinglike fifteen to twenty million people. This
is the price we pay in theCivil War. No wonder when Lincoln speaks
(22:26):
in the second Inaugural about the causesof the war. Yes, he identifies
slavery, and then he takes onestep further because he knew what people would
conclude when he said that. Peoplewho were hearing him would conclude, yeah,
yeah, we Northerners there, innocentof that, it's those Southerners who
are guilty of slavery. Lincoln says, no, no, no. The
(22:48):
war has been of such catastrophic dimensionsthat we can only understand why God has
visited this on us if we understandthe North and South alike have both been
implicated in the evil of slavery.And if you don't like hearing that,
Lincoln says, if that offends you, then don't take it up with me,
(23:11):
because that is what God says.And he asks the question, shall
not the judge of all the earthdo? Right? Who's going to disagree
with him on that point? So, yes, he sees slavery, he
does think being so important because thepeople that clung to it, oh my
goodness, that clung to it withthis almost manic, fanatical determination. And
(23:36):
you know, the sad part isthat that determination does not disappear at appomatics.
It goes underground for a while,and then it surfaces in new forms
of oppression and manipulation. And it'salmost as though we get to thirty years
after the Civil War, we getto Pleasi Bress Burtisom and you scratch your
head and you wonder, what didwe fight this war, for I thought
(24:00):
the result was supposed to be somewherein a different direction. Yet that stubbornness,
that refuse to yield to the basicpoints of the Declaration of Independence,
that not only cost us so muchin the way of carnage in the Civil
War itself, but it cost usdecades that led us to lynching, It
(24:23):
led us to Jim Crow, leadsus even today to all the racial conundrums
and controversies that we deal with oreven in our own lives at this moment.
No, I think Isabelle Harkerson herbook cast I found that the most
useful way to deal with the constructof it, which is a cast system
(24:48):
where everybody buys them to it,and even if you are a victim,
you kind of buy into it.But you know that also highlights Lincoln.
I mean, he moved from beinga man who morally opposed slavery, but
struggled with the notion of two racesbeing able to coexist, two actually speaking
of a franchise. No, impossiblythe reason why he was sassinated, many
(25:15):
believe, but John Wilkes Booth whosaid that, yes, that he heard
Lincoln say in his last speech onApril eleventh, eighteen sixty five. We've
got to move towards extending the franchiseto the free slaves, and Booth tarnsts
accomplished David Harold, and he says, I know what that means. That
means black voting rights. I'll puthim through. Does lashbeech? He'll give
(25:38):
three days later. What does Boothdo? Yeah? Yeah, So before
I ask you, but well,do you think Frederick Douglass, though,
played a larger than life role inpushing frauding him one, if nothing else
by having African American men in themilitary, which I think would have to
(26:02):
is. I believe with George Washingtonhaving William Lees Ballad with him in the
war, it makes you think differentlyabout the humanity and dignity of a person.
I would have to believe. Iremember this one letter that a Hessian
captain wrote back home during the revolutionbecause he was he was really puzzled by
(26:22):
the He had never seen anything likethis before. He says, you know,
every regiment of these American rebels hasgot black people in. It was
like, what, how can thatprobably be? But what he was describing
was something he actually saw on theground, and the revolution well, for
Lincoln. I'll say, I'll saytwo things about Lincoln that way. One
is, nobody ever pushes Lincoln todo anything that's Abrahamlet you don't push him.
(26:48):
He might push you, but youdon't push him. He moves on
his own speed. He moves onhis own chewel he was. He was
not the kind of person that youcould put into a corner and make go
in a certain direction. That simplywas not part of his character. But
one thing's that Lincoln sees in FrederickDouglas something very akin to himself. You
(27:11):
know, there's an experience that theyboth had. They never talked about to
each other, at least the nineo one, but they both had a
common experience. What was this.When Lincoln was oh fifteen, sixteen seventeen,
he had this little side hustle.He had a little boat that he
would use to paddle out to themiddle of the Ohio River, and he
(27:34):
would carry passengers out there in thatboat because that was where they flag down
the passing steamboats. Well, oneday two men come running down in a
hurry and they say, take usout to midstream. We want to get
on board that steamboat. So hetakes them out there, and when they
get on the boat, they turnaround and to Lincoln, they both flip
him a silver half dollar. Lincolnlooks at that and he says, I've
(27:56):
earned that all on my own.I can keep that. And Lincoln he
told that story repeatedly, and hesaid, from that point life looked fairer
and more attractive to me. FrederickDouglas has almost the same thing when he
arrives in New Bedford. It's gotto figure out what to do. And
he walks down the street and awoman hails him and says, could you
(28:18):
come in here and help. Shewants him to split some wood, which
he does. She turns around andgives him a dollar. He looks at
that and says, I've never beenpaid for my work before. I can
keep this. For both Douglas andLincoln, there was this common experience of
starting from nothing, sometimes listened,and then moving up from that. And
(28:41):
Douglas said years later that one ofthe things that he found most remarkable about
meeting Lincoln for the first time wasthat Lincoln Lincoln made no reference whatever to
a Douglas called the difference of colorbetween the two men. He said,
he was the first great man inAmerica I ever met, who never made
(29:03):
any reference that way. Instead,Douglas said, what I had was the
clear sense that with Lincoln and Isaw in each other was someone who had
come up from nothing or next tonothing or less than nothing, and who
had achieved much and who wanted tosee others achieve the same thing. And
that creates this bond between Lincoln andDouglas that will lead Douglas to make visits
(29:30):
to the White House. After Lincolngives his second inaugural address, Douglas gets
in the line of visitors at theWhite House. Lincoln sees him. He
says, there is my friend,Douglas. What did you think of the
speech? Douglas. Douglas sort oftaken aback the prison of the United States
is asking me what I think ofhis Speechman and Douglas it was a sacred
(29:53):
effort that captures something really remarkable inthese two men. And years later,
years later, Douglas gives this speak. I mean, he makes his living
basically as a public orator. Asa public speaker, he has a speech
that he gives, Oh my goodness, some two hundred and twenty times as
career called self made men. Wellhe's talking about himself, but who is
(30:19):
the primary example that he's offering AbrahamLincoln. And you almost have the sense
that in Douglas's mind, he's almostjoined himself and Lincoln together as though they
were one kind of personality, thekind of personality that can only flourish in
(30:41):
the American environment. So for him, that connection to Lincoln is an extremely
important thing, and it's important forLincoln because Lincoln wants Douglas to help him
recruit black soldiers for the Union Army. And yeah, and Howard, I
said that the role of Frederick DovesLincoln continued to grow, and he had
(31:02):
a moral compass, and you haveto appreciate one does appreciate that, I
sortinly do. Somebody who's a politicalpersonality is as was Abraham Lincoln, very
political, but who had this moralcompass, but had the capacity to learn
and growth, capacity to listen,capacity to grasp what is it that this
(31:23):
person is bringing to the conversation thatI may have missed. And we're all
going to miss something because we havelimited you know, our life experiences are
different. And that's you know,that's that's what I meant. And he
had to get there in a sufficientway to pull a country to follow him.
(31:44):
I mean a country that, whatevertheir position was wedded to this cast
system. Is you know something we'venot totally you know, liberated ourselves from
Lincoln. Always hard out a sharpeye, or what is possible in public
opinion? I mean, he oncemade this comment that, especially in a
(32:07):
democratic environment, public opinion is everything. You have to bring public opinion with
you. You can't defy it,because otherwise it will overwhelm you, It'll
crush you. All right, Howdo you develop public opinion for him?
First of all, it takes patience, and this is a man of great
patience. It takes resilience, andthis is a man who can absorb a
(32:28):
lot of punishment. It's remarkable inthe politician. He's also a man of
humility. He doesn't he doesn't getup on his own high horse. He's
willing to see other people take creditfor things if it will move the overall
moment and cause in the right direction. But he has such a clear,
(32:51):
sophisticated view of things. There wereno polls, in new Gallop polls or
things like that in his day.He had to rely on what people might
tell him and what he might read, but he had He had this coup
of the eye that allowed him toidentify what was important and what wasn't.
(33:13):
Out of the great mass of newsand information that would come his way,
he could pick out the really importantthings that would say, well, this
is where we're going in six months, this is where we'll be in eighteen
months. And one of his oneof his political friends who paid a visit
to him in the White House,who was who was very despairing at one
point, went to Lincoln and said, oh, whoe is us, Lincoln.
(33:34):
Lincoln got this little notebook out ofhis out of his coat, and
the endto this notebook, Lincoln hadpasted these little excerpts from a newspaper account
here, from a convention report here. He pasted them all together, and
he walked his friend through and says, this is what this is where we're
headed six months from now, thisis where we're going to be. Here's
(33:54):
where the trends are taking us.His friend left the office. This is
great, I'm optimistic. Now.Why Lincoln had that sense of recognition of
what was really important and where thingswere really going, and he understood how
to develop that and how to nurturethat, and he's always thinking, is
(34:17):
a very cautious person, but atthe same time, he's always thinking,
how can we keep the momentum?He said to members of Congress at one
point, he's very he's very impatientwith the members of the border state delegations
because these are states that have stayedin the Union, four of them,
but they're still places that legalize slavery. He says, will you not recognize
(34:39):
the signs of the times? Willyou not see where we're going? Emancipate?
Now? Do it now, becausesooner or later the war is going
to end slavery, and you'll endup the losers for it. So take
the action now. He sees wherethings are going. He understands where the
movement is, and he wants topush the country and pull the country so
(35:02):
that people are able to grasp that. And as you know, by the
end of his life, you seeso much of that. One person who
gave a eulogy for Lincoln four daysafter Lincoln's death, he was a man
from Massachusetts. He said that hehad the impression that Lincoln never thought of
(35:23):
himself as a president, as aruler who's handing down declarations to people.
He always had the sense that Lincolnthought of himself as the attorney general for
the people. He was representing theinterests of the people to the people themselves.
He was a great persuader. Well, he was a trial lawyer,
(35:44):
he should be, but he wasstill a great persuader. And you see
that all through his speeches, yousee it through his writings. As president,
he was tremendous at pulling people alongin ways that they themselves would never
have seen them moving four years before, well before I ask you about where
his position is within that pantheontic presidence. Do you think that his semi deity
(36:08):
status may lie in the fact,and maybe this was providential. I can
tend to think so that the warends on Palm Sunday. By happenstance,
John Brookes Booth ends up finding outhe's going to be at Forts Theater on
Good Friday, and the fatal shotoccurs. Then it's Holy Week. I
(36:31):
mean of people are gathering at Senagogue'sthat day dies and then the rest of
the country, primarily Christians, gatheredthat Sunday on Easter, where in each
instance he's compared to Moses and ofcourse to Christ I mean Moore's been written
about him than any other president.When we gathered now to express our hopes
(36:55):
and aspirations, we do it inthat we're standing in front of his monument.
Do you think he is a providentialpresident? Do you think that it
was just happenstance that he has thisposition in our collective thinking? Well,
I'll preface my response by saying,first of all, is a caution that
(37:19):
the Lord has not revealed it tome yet. I have not had a
revelation that says Abraham Lincoln was mychosen representatives, So I haven't. I
haven't gotten that revelation. But havingsaid that, I would then go on
to say that my best estimate ofthings is yes, yes, And in
(37:43):
many ways, think about it thisway, I'm out a mayor. Look
at the presidents who occupied the officebefore Lincoln. Let's see what a roster
James Knox Polk, John Tyler,Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan,
What a lineup of losers? Andat that point you think, is
(38:09):
this the best the country can do? And then, at this moment of
stupendous crisis, who is elected President? Abraham Lincoln? And it was almost
as though at the moment when weneeded someone like him the most, we
(38:29):
got him. One famous German PrinceAuto on Bismarck. I'm not in the
habit of quoting as an authority.Bismarck once said that the Lord looks out
for fools, drunks, and theUnited States of America. And I have
(38:51):
to say, all right, I'mnot sure he meant that as a compliment,
but I'm going to take it thatway, because if there's anything it
seems to me that demonstrates that AbrahamLincoln, what good thing did we do,
what good thing did we represent thatat the moment when we needed exactly
that kind of leader, we gotit. Yeah, this is very natural.
(39:17):
It was providential for us to addthe great honor as we celebrate this
our sixteenth president, to have achance to have this conversation with you,
doctor Glzel. So it's just beenmagnificent. So appreciate your scholarship, and
so appreciate your sharing your insights andscholarship with us here at IPPH. I'm
(39:38):
always happy to do so. Andit doesn't take much. You put a
nickel in my meter, I'll talkabout Lincoln all day. Well, thank
you, so much. We reallyappreciate it, all right, thank you,
I appreciate that, right, thankyou for that good word. The
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