I promised in an
earlier essay on Lincoln being our last Revolutionary Founder that I would
write about his historical imagination.]
Abraham Lincoln, as I wrote about him earlier, was indeed
our last Revolutionary Founder. Of the 15 presidents before him, 13 were either
slave owners or tolerable of slavery. Only two- John Adams and John Quincy
Adams- outright opposed slavery but they lacked the power to eliminate it. The
strategy of the Founders to “kick the can down road” on the slavery issue stopped
with Lincoln. Lincoln’s power to fight slavery coupled with the “poisoned
pills” the Confederation Congress and the Constitutional Convention, both in 1787,
gave him the resources to do so. Yet even these resources were inadequate.
Lincoln also mobilized his historical imagination to provide meaning and
purpose to the campaign.
We must first understand
imagination to arrive at the definition of historical imagination for the
purposes of this essay. Imagination can be defined as the action of forming new
ideas and concepts, the ability of the mind to be creative and resourceful, and
the ability to produce novel ideas in the mind. Imagination is a key to making
knowledge available in solving problems and is foundational to integrate
personal experience with new learning. The term is rooted in the Latin verb
meaning “to picture oneself.”
Historical imagination is therefore
the ability to examine history in its original context and draw out lessons for
contemporary generalized applications and specific life actions. And
remembering that history does not necessarily repeat itself, but history does
have rhythm, flow, and patterns.
So, how did Lincoln develop such a
sense of historical imagination? One thing we know is that he did not spend
many months in a schoolhouse, much less a college setting. We do know that
Lincoln was a reader and storyteller. He read the Bible, Shakespeare, and many
other works that many contemporary high school graduates (with years in the
schoolhouse) have not read and could not be able to identify if quizzed. One
book Lincoln read that stands out for me is Euclid’s Geometry which he
credited with helping him to think logically and systemically.
Another advantage that Lincoln possessed
was his robust and positive civil religion. Civil religion is a blending of patriotism
and piety, which should be avoided on most occasions. When our presidents
conclude their speeches with “May God bless the United States,” that is a mild
and innocuous form of civil religion. But when Americans believe that God will
only bless us, that form of civil religion must be shunned. Lincoln’s civil
religion was not innocuous, and it was not dangerous. His religious faith leads
him to a belief in God but without commitment to any denominational sect.
Lincoln skillfully combined his form of piety to the promise of America for
freedom and personal advancement.
Lincoln was, in addition, was a
seasoned and pragmatic politician, first for the Whig Party and then to the
newly formed Republican Party. He could wed vision with action and get things
done. In 1858 he lost his Senate race to Stephen Douglas and then used this
event to gain notice for himself to go on to defeat Douglas and two other major
candidates for the presidency in 1860.
I will now briefly describe four major
speeches and addresses Lincoln gave that illustrate his own brand of historical
imagination. In sequential order, they are-
·
The House Divided Speech on June 16, 1858, in
Springfield, Illinois after he accepted his state party’s nomination for US Senator.
Lincoln’s speech began with, “A house divided against itself, cannot stand. I
believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I
do not expect the Union to be dissolved- I do not expect the house to fall- but
I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all
the other.” While many point to Mark 3:25 in the Christian New Testament as
Lincoln’s inspiration, the term “a house divided” had also been used in one
form or another by Saint Augustine, Thomas Hobbes (1651), Thomas Paine (1776),
Abigail Adams (ca. 1812), and Felix Walker (ca. 1850). But it was Lincoln who reimagined
the term as a direct attack on slavery.
·
The Cooper Union Speech on February 27, 1860, in
New York City. While Lincoln was eyeing the Republican presidential nomination
later that year, he traditionally could not do so in his time, so he did not
announce his candidacy. Nevertheless, many historians credit this speech as pivotal
to his electoral victory in the fall. Lincoln firmly opposed the expansion of slavery
into the territories, “The sum of the whole is, that of our thirty-nine fathers
who framed the Constitution, twenty-one…certainly understood that…any part of
the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control slavery in the federal
territories…” Here Lincoln was reimaging what was accomplished against slavery
in both the
·
The Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, at the
dedication of the national cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This short
speech is Lincoln’s best known and most memorized address. In it he drew inspiration
from before the Constitution, from the Declaration of Independence (“four score
and seven years ago) with this resolve,” …that these dead shall not have died
in vain- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom- and
that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish
from the earth.”
·
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865,
at the US Capitol was most haunting words on the cause of the Civil War- “Both
read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against
the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask assistance in
wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not,
that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of
neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.” The entire
address is a bold and positive imaginative blending of the Hebrew Scriptures
and the Christian New Testament into a call for judgment, humility, charity,
and peace that has ever been spoken by an American political leader.
The expanse of Lincoln’s historical
imagination was deep and wide. He was indeed our last Revolutionary Founder.
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