Abraham Lincoln's Union
Harold Holzer 00:00
Having said it, as inauguration, "I have the most solemn oath registered in heaven on the Constitution to preserve, protect, and defend the Union. You have no oath to destroy it," and there he's talking about the Constitution, but later it's all about the promise of the Declaration, and that's what animates Lincoln's revised concept of the Union. It's not just the original ideas, although they were wonderful. It's meeting the promise. It's expanding the promise. And he says it, of course, at Gettysburg. It's a new birth of freedom.
Colleen Shogan 00:34
In November 1863, Abraham Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg to honor the men who had given their last full measure of devotion on one of the bloodiest battlefields of the American Civil War? For more than two years, Americans had fought each other to decide whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal could long endure. Now, a tired and weary Lincoln joined other dignitaries in Gettysburg to continue the unfinished work of the men who gave their lives that the nation might live. The famed orator Edward Everett spoke that day for more than two hours. Abraham Lincoln spoke for barely two minutes. As today's guest Harold Holzer argues, in those two minutes, Lincoln called for a new birth of freedom, for a union forged in the fires of civil war. So, what can we learn from Lincoln's enduring belief in the republic he died to save? I'm Colleen Shogan, and this is In Pursuit, a podcast that explores lessons from America's past to write the history of America's future. Episode 12: Abraham Lincoln's Union. Harold Holzer, welcome to In Pursuit.
Harold Holzer 01:55
Thank you. Great to be with you.
Colleen Shogan 01:57
It's probably safe to say that most people encounter Abraham Lincoln as a nearly mythic figure who led the United States through civil war, only to die by an assassin's hand. You know his early years are are less clear. So can you tell us about them?
Harold Holzer 02:15
When I was young, decades ago, sadly, the early life was really part of the myth. He was, of course, the marble colossus at the Lincoln Memorial, to be sure. But the origin story was very well known to kids, and it's it sounds almost cliched or too challenging to be real. But he was, after all, born in a dirt floor log cabin in remote a remote area of Kentucky. He was self-educated, famously so, just reading whatever he could get his hands on, even if he had to work off the cost of a damaged book that he had borrowed, and subsequently was soaked with rain. At least he got to own his first book. The Lincoln, who was a wrestler, you know, who earned his street creds in a frontier village called New Salem by wrestling the local bully to a draw, and then earning their their friendship. the The guy who was impeccably honest, so that he was always asked to referee athletic contests, and the guy who lost his mother at an early age. And fortunately for him, growing up in a family with a father who was kind of unsympathetic to his yearning for self-improvement, happily his stepmother saw something in him that was special. She had her own children, but she realized what a jim her stepson was, and he she fought for his right to read, the right to read, the right to, to to improve himself, and that's what that really was his boyhood. He said it was the like Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard, the short and simple annals of the poor, and it was he didn't romanticize it. It was very very difficult.
Colleen Shogan 04:19
And so unlike George Washington, where we have some of the myths of George Washington's young life, you know, we're all familiar with Parson Weems and the cherry tree tale. You're saying these things were actually true in Lincoln's life.
Harold Holzer 04:32
Not only were they true, but he loved Parson Weems. That was one of the books that animated his childhood. All those stories of honesty. Yeah, his walking a mile out of his way to to give someone the correct change after he'd overcharged them in in the little grocery store he kept in in New Salem, his wife later said honesty was a mania for him. Those were all true. He chopped wood. He split rails. He built rails. Fences, and when he was declared the rail candidate for president, and people carried rails all over Illinois in in support of his candidacy, he did say "maybe those aren't the real rails I split, but I did split rails very much like them." The mythology has a deep kernel of truth to it.
Colleen Shogan 05:21
So this is a robust young man. He, like you said, he's he's doing physical labor and construction. So why does he become a lawyer, and what does he learn about justice and human nature from serving as a circuit lawyer?
Harold Holzer 05:38
He had no desire to devote his entire life to manual labor. He, as he said, he worked hard enough to know that he didn't like it. The law was an attractive idea for him first because he had this innate sense of justice and fairness. He had developed a skill as an arbitrator, as a referee, even in his brief military service, which was otherwise comical as an experience, as he remembered it, doing battle only against mosquitoes, it was also a means to inform a political career. And I always believe that Lincoln's Lincoln developed his interest in the law concurrently with his interest in public service. In fact, he was elected to the Illinois state legislature before he actually got his law license. And then, as you say, his life on the on the judicial circuit, this vast expanse in Central Illinois, which he traveled six months of the year to argue cases in in town county seats exposed him to journalists and litigants who shared his politics. And one of the reasons Lincoln did not go home on weekends, as other fellow lawyers did, was not as has been rumored because he hated going home to his unhappy marital status, but because he stayed behind to do the politics, to get to know people, to line them up as future supporters, and I think the the law and politics was interchangeable for him at a certain point.
Colleen Shogan 07:17
So when Lincoln entered politics, he became a member of the Whig Party, and what role did he see for government in citizens' everyday lives?
Harold Holzer 07:29
What he liked about the Whigs, I think, were three basic tenets of Whiggery. One was state and federal funding for education. He believed in mandatory schools, and he believed in funding for schools and teachers, and that you know put him in the minority in this country in the 1830s and 40s. Second, and even more important to him, was infrastructure, as we've come to call it. Lincoln called it internal improvements. He thought essential to modernizing America, to building America from a coast to coast America, which I think he envisioned as early as many of the visionary politicians of his day, was the building of roads and canals and ultimately bridges tracks. He supported federal investment in that. The Democratic Party did not, and he also believed in banking. The Democrats in the Jacksonian era were against banking. And finally, he embraced the the the moral leader of the Whig Party, Henry Clay's belief in political compromise, not not overweening executive authority like Jackson practiced, or James Knox Polk, the president when he was in Congress practiced by endless vetoing of internal improvement legislation. So I think that's what attracted him to the Whigs,
Colleen Shogan 09:01
And his wife Mary Lincoln knew Henry Clay, correct?
Harold Holzer 09:05
She did. She'd met him many more times than Lincoln had. Lincoln got to hear him speak when he visited Kentucky to visit his father-in-law. Yes, but I know. I think that was kind of part of the courtship.
Colleen Shogan 09:18
It might have been part of the deal.
Harold Holzer 09:20
It may have been part of the deal. I admire Henry Clay, but you know Henry Clay,
Colleen Shogan 09:24
Right.
Harold Holzer 09:25
Let's make a match.
Colleen Shogan 09:26
We've talked about this in a previous episode when we discussed Polk, but talk to us about the Mexican War and the role that it played in thrusting Lincoln into national politics.
Harold Holzer 09:39
Well, Lincoln is elected to Congress in 1846 as an anti-administration Whig. It's kind of a safe Whig district. It's so safe. It's the only Whig district in Illinois at the time, and the manifestation of its secure Whig status. Is that the leading young Whigs of the day agreed to take turns serving for one term only? Lincoln was the third, I believe, in the list, and you know what that did is reduce the influence of all of them because they didn't build any seniority. They didn't get rates. Yeah,
Colleen Shogan 10:20
this is a problem with the Whigs, right? This rotation of power, you know, was a fundamental flaw in the in the party platform.
Harold Holzer 10:27
Just jumping ahead for a second, when Lincoln was done with his term, he said, "Well, maybe we shouldn't do that." They said, "Yeah, we should, because because this guy is waiting in the wings."
Colleen Shogan 10:36
Right
Harold Holzer 10:36
Lost the seat. So Lincoln is elected in the you know in the midst of this war fever, but because of the way the system worked, then he's elected in 46. He doesn't go to Congress to serve until the end of 47. So by the time he gets there, he yes he's an opponent of the war, but the war is all but over, and the treaties are being written for the acquisition of the Mexican Cession, but Lincoln is anti-war for two reasons. It's he believes it's presidential overreach, which has an irony because of his exercise of executive authority later, but also I think he perceives it as a land grab for slavery, and that's the Whig position that all of this new southern Southwest land is going to be open to the extension of slavery. And Lincoln believed early the nationalization ultimately of slavery, and that's that's definitely was his fear about the Mexican War.
Colleen Shogan 11:43
So, would you describe Lincoln at this time? Is he anti-slavery or is he anti-expansion of slavery?
Harold Holzer 11:50
Well, he's always, as he said, even in '64, when he talked about how his personal feelings could not dictate the limitations of his exercise of power constitutionally. He said, "I've always been anti-slavery. I can't remember when I did not so feel." And in his famous letter to Horace Greeley, a few weeks before the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, he wrote, you know this brilliant defense of his limitations. "If I could save the Union by freeing some slaves, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing no slaves, I would do it. If I could do it by freeing all slaves, I would do it." He ends that very famous letter to the editor by saying, "That doesn't change my personal wish that all men everywhere could be free," so he is anti-slavery. But his vision for preventing its survival to the end of time is to limit its expansion. So anti-expansion is the political position that he takes as a way of demonstrating his anti-slavery, but not quite his radical, not quite the radical position that was getting outright abolitionists into trouble, without the possibility of getting traction in mainstream politics. We sometimes forget that while abolitionists were as you know close to modern beliefs as as possible, they were a fringe movement that was regarded by most people, most certainly white people in the South, and most white people in the North as dangerous.
Colleen Shogan 13:32
When he runs against Stephen Douglas for the Senate, and of course at this point in time there's not direct election of senators, so he's really running for the election via the the state legislature, but nonetheless, it's a it's a statewide race, and he's you know barnstorming the state with with Douglas, and they're debating each other. A lot of people think that the Lincoln Douglas debates are about principally about slavery, but they're really about the purpose of of the Union. So can you flesh that out for us? What are their different conceptions of what the Union is
Harold Holzer 14:06
I think at that point the Union is still taken for granted. I don't think either man could conceive of the actual breakup of the Union, including Douglas, who was a strong nationalist as as as well. He just had a different perception of how to preserve the union. Douglas's vision was called popular sovereignty, and that is allow white settlers in new western territories as they were organized. You know, Kansas, Nebraska, and these new states let them vote on whether or not to welcome or forbid slavery. Douglas, I think, sincerely believed that that was the way to create a democratic, small D democratic solution to the increasing, as he called it, agitation over slavery. Lincoln believed that it was, you know, extending the possibility of immorality, and and also encouraging what he calls squatter sovereignty. That is, what is to stop a group of slave owners from moving from territory to territory so they could control the majority vote in any referendum on slavery. Also, Lincoln believed that this, and and he was right that this new system, which was enacted in 1854 by vote of Congress, would undo the Missouri Compromise, which it did because it technically allowed for slavery to expand into the Central West, even the Northwest, if slavery was, could be profitable there. So that was their different visions: a country where slavery was contained versus a country where slavery could spread on democratic votes. And the other, the other big difference, and really shocking to read it today, is the debate over a future biracial society? Most of what was said by Douglas was horrific. He used the N word. He charged Lincoln with planning to have black people as voters, jurors, heaven forbid, intermarrying with white people, and Lincoln had to make clear in one of the debates that he didn't believe in making jurors or voters of black people, but as he put it, in a black person's right to eat the bread that she earns with that she makes with her own hands, she is my equal and the equal of every other person. That was radical enough, but those other statements have come back to haunt Lincoln's reputation since 1858, and it was a it was a wild election. It's the really the first time there was a statewide debate for the United States Senate, and it was Lincoln who challenged Douglas, and Douglas probably should have said no, but he did. You know, he's got this manly Western attitude. You can't back down from a challenge. So they did the debates, and you know, Lincoln won for losing. He lost the election because the debates were cut were taken down by stenographers for the first time. Courtroom stenography was a new phenomena because they were phonographically recorded, as they say, which doesn't mean a phonograph; it means shorthand, and then published in the newspapers. Sometimes nationally, Lincoln emerges as a leader of the Republican Party, and and I think early on thought of as a candidate for the national ticket two years afterwards,
Colleen Shogan 17:44
Well, that's a great explanation to explain how he could have ascended by you know losing the Senate, but then he ascends to the presidency in 1861. So, what steps did he believe that he could take and that he did take as president to preserve the Union when he becomes president?
Harold Holzer 18:02
You know he doesn't say anything new during the presidential campaign. It's not like today's campaigns where you hear from the candidates and the endlessly. There were substitutes, there were stand-ins, there were surrogates, there was lots of literature, lots of parades and hullabaloo. But the candidates themselves generally remained absolutely silent back porch or front porch candidates. And once Lincoln is elected in November, his his belief is do nothing to conciliate the demands of the Southern slaveholding states, and do nothing to coerce them into secession. He really believed inaccurately, as it turned out, that the Southern slaveholding states would not secede. That Union sentiment, which he held so dear to his heart, would would prevail, and ultimately beat back the radicals who are agitating for separation, he was wrong in that. So, but he still wouldn't speak out. And and you know, South Carolina leaves the Union in December. Other states follow seven states before he even gets to Washington, and he has not done anything but say it's not much of a crisis or wait four years if you don't like what I do, get rid of me. Gives 100 speeches on the way to Washington, but no real policy speeches. Once he's there, he waits. He waits for six weeks, and what he finally decides to do is resupply a federal fort in Charleston, South Carolina harbor, Fort Sumter. The mere resupplying, not rearming, was enough to provoke an attack. Something that that was exactly what Lincoln had thought was necessary to rally northern support. So the first. He did was call for 75,000 volunteers and order a blockade on southern ports, which inflamed other states, four more states, into seceding from the union, and had a couple of others, Missouri and Kentucky, particularly teetering on the edge of disunion. You know, he had to call up volunteers, but it exacerbated the problem. He was between the proverbial rock and a hard place. The other thing he did, and it's a a a less known aspect of his his presidency, is that he cracked down on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. He closed down newspapers not only in border states like Maryland and Missouri and Kentucky, but in New York City, where I'm speaking from. A dozen newspapers were curtailed, were thrown off trains, barred from the postal service in those early days, in the summer of 1861, because he thought that there was a fine line between dissent and treason, but once it was crossed, in his view, in the army's view, it had to be prevented.
Colleen Shogan 21:16
You've written a lot about Lincoln's relationship with the press, and I was always fascinated. I worked at the Library of Congress for many years, and one of the most treasured collections at the Library of Congress is, of course, the contents of Lincoln's pockets the night that he was assassinated. And one of the things that is in his pocket, actually in his wallet, I believe, is clippings from newspaper. Some clippings that are positive about him, very interesting. But it shows that Lincoln certainly cared about the press and and what was being said about him. So, what was his relationship like with the press during the Civil War?
Harold Holzer 21:59
I love that story, by the way, of the the clippings-they're mostly good reviews. We well, we would
Colleen Shogan 22:05
all always carry good reviews in our in our wallet, right? Actually,
Harold Holzer 22:09
some and I wish I could give her credit, but there's been some research done, and someone at the at the library has actually found out where those clips were from because you know he didn't he didn't jot down where where they came from? Yes, they actually
Colleen Shogan 22:22
cataloged. They actually have. I looked on this last week, and it's cataloged where those clippings actually appeared. It's amazing. And
Harold Holzer 22:30
some of them are southern, I think.
Colleen Shogan 22:32
Yes, which are
Harold Holzer 22:32
fascinating. He always clipped articles. They're in the Lincoln papers in the Library of Congress as well. His relationship with the press was lifelong. He became sort of a an anonymous editorial writer for the Whig newspaper, the Sangamon Journal, when he was still the postmaster in New Salem, and he was a Jackson appointment, a Democratic appointment as postmaster, because nobody else wanted the job. He wanted it because he would read people's newspapers when they came into the post office. He would read them first, and that was how he got his education in in newspapers. He befriended Whig and Republican editors, and he fought with Democratic editors. By the time he got to Springfield, Illinois, as a lawyer and state legislator, he practically had a house newspaper in that Sangamon journal and an enemy paper in the Illinois State Register, which later, years, decades later, combined into one paper. As often happened when there were newspapers of different parties in the same in the same town, in and these newspapers carried his views, supported everything he did, just as the Democratic papers attacked everything he did. One of my favorite examples takes place during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. After the first debate, at which Lincoln was not at his very best, the Republican paper said that after the debate, Lincoln's supporters carried him off on their shoulders in triumph. The Democratic paper wrote after the debate, Lincoln was so exhausted that his supporters had to carry him off the platform. So that's the kind of coverage that he dealt with. And in 1859, he actually purchased a German language newspaper that was in debt, he gave the editor $500, which is a pretty big sum in those days, to rescue his printing press from the from Hawk, and he wrote a contract saying that the paper needed to only to adhere to Republican doctrine for the next year, and then the the editor could reclaim all of his goods, and Lincoln would be done with it. No copies of this paper survive, which makes it the biggest rarity in the Lincoln world. He then gives great patronage jobs to Republican editors. Once he becomes president, the the opposition press joke that the New York Tribune was unable to publish once he was inaugurated because the newsroom had completely vacated by office seekers, and continued to befriend editors. You know the New York Times and the New York Tribune in 1864 when he runs for re-election, the editor of the New York Times is his national chairman from his campaign, a candidate, a Republican candidate for Congress in New York City, and the editor of the New York Times, all at the same time. And he's also wrote a campaign book about Lincoln, so he was also David Axelrod at the same time. So it was extraordinary how politicized the press was and how Lincoln was so deeply involved. But at the same time, he shuts down opposition newspapers throughout the war, including the New York World, the New York Journal of Commerce in 1864, and all through the war, newspapers are shut down by the army or the State Department, the Interior Department, and in the case of those two New York papers, by a direct order signed by Lincoln himself. So there's always a measure of censorship and oversight during the war.
Colleen Shogan 26:16
That's fascinating because we don't usually think of that when we think of Lincoln.
Harold Holzer 26:20
Right. But it was quite censorious, and and you know when complaints were issued, and there were, he said, you know that that part of the Constitution is sacred, but I'm not going to let the whole Constitution be destroyed to save a part of it. It would like it would be like a war casualty, whose leg was saved instead of the body, when you have to do an amputation. And this was kind of a grisly metaphor to use, especially in an era of mass amputations. Said you would always save the body and forsake the leg.
Colleen Shogan 26:56
In his essay for In Pursuit, President Barack Obama writes that Lincoln's understanding of the Union deepened and expanded over the course of the war. So, what were the Union's origins in Lincoln's mind, and how did his conception of the Union change throughout his life, throughout his presidency?
Harold Holzer 27:20
I think he always believed in the sacredness of the unity of the states, and he believed it made this amalgamation of different territories the strongest, potentially the strongest country in the world, and one where people with limitless ambition could succeed according to the best of their talents and and enjoy a government that could be helpful to all. Could not did not have to do everything, but could do things that people could not do for themselves. I've heard President Obama you quote that phrase, and my old boss Mario Cuomo loved that phrase. The "he legitimate object of government is to do for people what they cannot do or do so well for themselves." That's the essence of what the union offered. And when Lincoln is inaugurated, he says, "You know, a husband and wife may divorce and go their separate ways, but this union is permanent and forever, and it's for the mutual whatever our differences. It's for the mutual benefit of of all." As the war progresses, and President Obama notes this in his essay, he sees the opportunity not only to test whether the Union can survive internal dissent, and Lincoln says that on july 4, 1861, we've shown we can create a country. Now, and we've shown we can create a government and sustain it. Now we have to ask ourselves: Can we save it in the midst of internal revolt? And that's the big test. But that wasn't enough for Lincoln, as the opportunity arose to to end slavery. And in this regard, he relies less and less on his belief in the Constitution. Having said it, his inauguration, "I have the most solemn oath registered in heaven on the Constitution to preserve, protect, and defend the Union. You have no oath to destroy it." And there he's talking about the Constitution, but later it's all about the promise of the Declaration, and that's what animates Lincoln's revised concept of the Union. It's not just the original ideas, although they were wonderful. It's it's it's meeting the promise, it's expanding the promise, and he says it, of course, at Gettysburg. It's a new birth of freedom. It's it's re-consecrating what was consecrated four score and seven years earlier, and then Lincoln. Then the the union that Lincoln envisions is one in which truly all men are created equal. By which you know eventually we we expand. One aspirationally to all people of both sexes, but I think the war gives Lincoln the opportunity to create what the Constitution promised but failed to deliver-a more perfect union.
Colleen Shogan 30:13
So, how did Lincoln realize this new vision of Union? How did he hope to realize this new vision of union in Reconstruction.
Harold Holzer 30:24
Well, first, obviously, cleansing the country of the hypocrisy of of enslavement is the is the primary is the primary goal and the primary accomplishment, not just the executive order, which is an executive order, and Lincoln is not often given enough of credit credit for this, supporting the idea of a platform plank in 1864 to enact a constitutional amendment, or to you know draft a constitutional amendment for ratification by the states that would end slavery everywhere forever, not just in the states that were covered by the emancipation, meaning the states in rebellion, but also in the border states, which had resisted Lincoln's attempts during the war to end slavery, even if the government had to pay millions of dollars to compensate owners. They, to use today's terminology, it was a great deal, but they didn't take the deal, and we don't. We know that Lincoln had two visions of reconstruction. We know it from the lenient plans he crafted for readmission to the Union. He originally said, "If 10% of voting population swears allegiance to the Union, that's enough for us to readmit a state," and he got lots of blowback on that from people who thought that that was simply, you know, unconscionably inadequate. There were so many traitors afoot, and the crisis would recur. But then, in his last speech on April 11, 1865, his only real public address on Reconstruction. He, of course, didn't know it would be his final speech. He says that time has come to allow the vote to black men, especially those who have served in the military or the highly intelligent. Looking back from today's perspective, it sounds like means testing. It sounds like you know it's more exclusionary than inclusionary. But this was the first time that an American president had ever talked about extending the right to vote to people of color. The first time, and John Wilkes Booth was actually in the crowd that heard those words, and he knew exactly what it meant. They meant he turned to one of his compatriots and said, "That means Negro equality," and he didn't use the word "Negro." "That's the last speech he'll ever make." And and three days later, Booth shot Lincoln at at Ford's Theater to stop this idea of bringing Lincoln's vision of reconstruction, of reparation in some degree, maybe land, maybe of 40 acres and a mule. All these things he had been thinking about to build a biracial society, to bring black people into the American dream, I think that's what he believed, and I think had he had the opportunity, it would have been messy, and it would have been slower than the Congress ultimately wanted to do. But it probably might-I mean, it's only a guess. Might have been more permanent, and we might not have had the regression of the 1870s and 80s had Lincoln served another four years.
Colleen Shogan 33:51
In pursuit, of course, always tries to find relevant lessons from our nation's past, and this is a tough question for Abraham Lincoln. But what can we learn from him?
Harold Holzer 34:03
You know, Lincoln is is both the greatest writer about democracy among presidents. I mean, Jefferson did it once, but Lincoln did it repeatedly, in my view. But he was also sort of the the the living incarnation of the the unique right that Americans have to rise up to their highest potential. He is the log cabin to White House president. He wrote. He rose from the the most squalid, tiny enclave to the most powerful position in the United States, and and seized the opportunity to fundamentally change, albeit at great sacrifice, the kind of society that we lived in and the kind of aspirations that we had. So I think that's what he he continues to teach us today. America still offers the greatest opportunity to the greatest. Number of people, honesty and integrity are qualities that deserve to be cherished and should be rewarded. And in a more perfect union, will be rewarded. I think, and and also Lincoln saw at the very beginning the idea of a diverse America. He faced the most racist pushback from his opponents in in 1860, even worse in 1864. But he saw strength in believing in a different kind of America, and whatever setbacks we have, you know, the whole crooked but hopefully upward arc of justice that Dr. King and and others and President Obama have talked about only in America can you come back from disappointing moments and continue the the upward march.
Colleen Shogan 36:00
Well, we've certainly talked about that previously about the value of resilience. Harold Holzer, thank you so much for joining us today for In Pursuit.
Harold Holzer 36:09
Thank you for having me on.
Colleen Shogan 36:11
To read President Barack Obama's essay on Abraham Lincoln and to enjoy other great in pursuit essays and podcasts, visit in pursuit.org. In pursuit with Colleen Shogan is a podcast by More Perfect. The series is written and produced by Jim Ambuske. Production services provided by Stand Together. Our theme music is Kleos by Charlie Ryan. Audio mixing by Curt Dahl of CD squared. Please rate and review the show on your favorite podcast app, and tell us which Americans inspire you.
