Sunday, April 28, 2013

I must confess that I'm not a fan of Mr. Lincoln

Foseti has a long and thought provoking review of a new book on Mr. Lincoln:
The book is really about why the Civil War was fought. There are basically three competing theories: 1) ending slavery; 2) preserving the Union; and 3) ending federalism. The third is, of course the Southern position, and it’s Masters’.

Every other civilized country ended slavery without resorting to civil war, let alone one that ended with the death of roughly 2.5% of the country’s population (something like 7.5 million deaths in today’s population).
I've been saying something like this for a while, although that item #3 is new and thought provoking.  Masters raises some issues that are well known:
For in six weeks he was to inaugurate a war without the American people having anything to say about it. He was to call for and send troops into the South, and thus stir that psychology of hate and fear from which a people cannot extricate themselves, though knowing and saying that the war was started by usurpation. Did he mean that he would bow to the American people when the law was laid down by their courts, through which alone the law be interpreted as the Constitutional voice of the people? No, he did not mean that; because when Taney decided that Lincoln had no power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, Lincoln flouted and trampled the decision of the court. . . .
He also introduces ideas - connects dots, really - that I hadn't.  In retrospect it seems obvious, which is a little humbling:
The War between the States demonstrated that salvation is not of the Jews, but of the Greeks. The World War added to this proof; for Wilson did many things that Lincoln did, and with Lincoln as authority for doing them. Perhaps it will happen again that a few men, deciding what is a cause of war, and what is necessary to its successful prosecution, may, as Lincoln and Wilson did, seal the lips of discussion and shackle the press; but no less the ideal of a just state, which has founded itself in reason and in free speech, will remain.
Foseti sums up the book will soon make an appearance here in Camp Borepatch:
I think Masters explanation for why the war was fought is better than most. As I said, we must judge wars based on their outcomes, not based on propaganda. By that metric, the slaves weren’t free and the resulting “union” was absurd. The South was no more united with the North than occupied France was united with the Third Reich. If you kill enough people, you get a union of some kind. To Masters’ point, there certainly was no union on the legal terms that prevailed prior to the fighting. In both cases, it’s impossible for the resulting outcome to justify the loss of life and the level of destruction.
The quotes that Foseti leads off with are particularly interesting.  I was struck by the absence of Lord Acton (who corresponded with Robert E. Lee after the war).  Everyone is familiar with Acton's famous dictum:
Power corrupts.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Fewer are familiar with the next sentence:
Great men are almost always evil men.
The hagiography of President's Day is that Lincoln was a Great Man.  I'm quite inclined to agree, at least on Acton's terms.

7 comments:

Isegoria said...

It's not a new book, Borepatch; it's from 1931!

chiefjaybob said...

He had me, then he lost me. I kinda popped a couple capacitors when I read this:

"Did the US fight WWII to give Russia a dominant position in Europe and Asia? That’s not why anyone went to war, but that is what happened, hence the war must be judged in that light."

Uh. What? Is he suggesting that we should have stood by while Hitler ran over England? Or that the War shouldn't have been fought because the politicians let political correctness dictate the end game? I think that comment is rather absurd. It makes me question the veracity of the rest of the post. I agree that many of Lincoln's actions were quite extra-Constitutional, and a careful study of this should be made, but to claim such a thing is make those studies, and any solutions, pointless.

Chris Mallory said...

Hitler had no chance of overrunning England. He lost that opportunity before the US was even in the war.

Yes, the US should have stayed out of the European theater. FDR forced us into the Pacific, a better president would have kept us out of Asia as well.

Anonymous said...

Chris Mallory...I believe the Japanese forced you into a war in the Pacific even if the root cause were US sanctions. You had an imperial possession in the Philippines which is in Asia so again you had no choice but to fight that one. As for Europe the Germans had already torpedoed enough US ships to justify that one in US waters in the Atlantic.

Anonymous said...

As for Lincoln no matter what you think of him , he was almost certainly the first gay President which is why the left are now holding up as an icon to be admired.

Old NFO said...

Interesting approach...

Anonymous said...

I strongly recommend the book.

I focused on his interpretation of the war, and a bit less than I should have on his analysis of Lincoln. Treating Lincoln like a non-God makes for very interesting reading.