Lincoln's Profound and Benign Americanism, or Nationalism Without Malice

Abraham Lincoln is the greatest of all interpreters of America's moral meaning. He surpasses even Thomas Jefferson, though Lincoln himself might take exception to my claim.1Lincoln certainly gave Jefferson high praise, and he made constant use of the Declaration of Independence as the magisterial concentrate both of his own political philosophy and of the moral essence of this nation. You can't be more unstinting in your affirmation of the personal and national significance of a particular document than Lincoln was about the Declaration of Independence in Lewistown, Illinois, on August 17, 1858, on the way to the debates with Douglas, and in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, on February 22, 1861, on his way to becoming the president of the United States.

Lincoln praised the Declaration to the skies, and referred to it, in shorter passages, on dozens of other occasions. One might be tempted to say—and Lincoln himself might say—that all that he did was to use, affirm, reiterate, and apply what Thomas Jefferson had written in his drafting project four score and some years earlier at Eighth and Market in Philadelphia.But Lincoln did something more, and something more not only with respect to the abstract content of America's unique moral self-definition, but with respect also to its tone, its function, and its application. Lincoln was a particularly worthy interpreter of America's moral meaning, in the first place, because he stated it with a rare eloquence.

Secondly, he was the primary voice giving the American idea received from the founders its necessary reinterpretation and fresh critical application because he dramatized the centrality of equality—specifically racial equality—as part of the na- tion's essence. And in doing those things, he was able, to an unusual degree, to avoid the bane, scourge, curse, and disease that threaten all human statements of moral claims and national ideals—self-righteousness, invidiousness, moral pride, and condescension.Lincoln personally was that rare bird, a man who dealt in moral ideas without falling into moralism; who spoke about what is righteous without himself claiming, or being perceived to have claimed, a superior righteousness himself; who argued for justice without provoking in his hearers the sort of reaction Athenians had, when they couldn't stand it anymore to hear Aristides always called Aristides the Just. And by writing and speaking and thinking carefully, Lincoln was able to deal with his nation's moral essence in the same spirit and with the same result.My claim about Lincoln could be pelted with objections from many sides.

But two objections are of particular interest because they tend to deny, not the first or second, but the third and most distinctive of my claims. Reinhold Niebuhr, in one of the last things he wrote, an opinion piece in The New York Times on December 10, 1970, characteristically challenged the American illusion that we were some kind of a redeemer nation, different from and categorically better than other nations. Niebuhr lined up in front of his rhetorical firing squad a parade of presidents who, he charged, joined in the American chorus thanking God that we are not as other nations.

Richard Nixon, then in power, was a particularly easy target for his criticism, as was Thomas Jefferson, who at the beginning of the republic declared the United States a unique redeemer nation, and Woodrow Wilson, who surrounded U.S. participation in World War I with exalted claims of America's superior idealism. Included in his list was, surprisingly, Abraham Lincoln. Niebuhr singled out Lincoln's description of the American government as 'the last, best hope of earth' and said that Lincoln's use of that phrase 'repeated the obtuseness of our founding fathers to the continued growth of free societies in Western Europe, in the form of parliamentary democracy under the aegis of constitutional monarchy.'Lincoln, like the American founders, said Niebuhr, was 'obtuse' in failing to see that there were developing in Europe other potential centers of the human hope for free and popular government.

A particularly severe Niebuhrian critic might say the United States wasn't the last hope of earth, and may not even have been the best.To my chief mentor, Reinhold Niebuhr, I would argue that in 1862 it was not yet all that clear that nations of Europe would develop lasting democracies; that there were in Europe still then, and would be for some time to come, considerable bodies of opinion—the 48ers, for example, not long before Lincoln spoke, and a new wave of immigrants like Mario Cuomo's parents later—that did indeed look westward across the Atlantic to America as the world's democratic hope; that, as to those constitutional monarchies, the American founders had made a point of getting rid of kings and nobles, and an American could still be democratically wary of societies in which there was a remnant of hereditary privilege in a monarchy, even if it were constitutional; and that the content of the American moral ideal, for Lincoln as for many of his countrymen, was social and economic as well as political, and had to do not only with representative government but with the openness of society and the absence of the barriers of class.2Furthermore, consider Lincoln's allegedly objectionable phrase in its context. The phrase 'the last, best hope of earth' appeared in the remarkable ending to Lincoln's second annual message to Congress in December, 1862 (after the preliminary and before the final Emancipation Proclamation), in which he argued for graduated emancipation. The whole passage in which the phrase appears, the graceful three-paragraph ending of this message, is a sober appeal to change our thinking and ourselves and to alter our national condition—to 'disenthrall' ourselves, to put aside the 'dogmas of the quiet past' because they are 'inadequate to the stormy present'; to 'rise with the occasion' because 'the occasion is piled high with difficulties'; to 'think anew, and act anew' because 'our case is new.' This appeal to think and to change is addressed in a most direct, grave, and portentous manner to his fellow national leaders, who, with him, cannot escape history, who, with him, must pass through this fiery trial, and who, with him, will be remembered in spite of themselves. 'We know how to save the Union,' Lincoln said, and the world knows we know.

We have, Lincoln interjected for emphasis, 'even we here' have—the power and the responsibility. The phrase, 'the last, best hope of earth' then occurs as the profound description of that which we here now may by our actions 'nobly save, or meanly lose.' That is the context in which Lincoln refers to this nation as the last, best hope of earth—in an appeal and a warning to American leaders not to act so as to 'meanly lose' this precious human hope entrusted to them.And how might those leaders nobly save, instead of meanly losing, this best hope for the world? By a radical change in the nation's institutions.

By giving freedom to the slave, which would also assure freedom to the free, 'noble alike in what we give and what we save.' Noble, that is, if we do it, something not yet done.The phrase, with its two superlatives—last, best—has the effect, in context, not of encouraging an egotistical national complacency or sense of superiority, but of adding weight and sober meaning to the serious choice American leaders had then to make. The passage would not have been improved had Lincoln written something more modest—if he had described what was a stake as, for example, one of the few fairly good hopes, or, one of the somewhat better hopes, of earth. As it stands in its setting, it is a long way from sheer national boasting, obtuse or otherwise.What about the Gettysburg Address?

The Italian-born editor and publisher of a magazine I once worked for wrote one of the few editorials critical of John F. Kennedy's 'Ask not what' inaugural address. Upon his first visit to the White House he was immediately challenged for writing that editorial by none other than President Kennedy himself.

The publisher (Max Ascoli) had the wit to respond, 'Mr. President, the problem is not with your address, but with the genre' (meaning the overstatement and grandiosity into which presidents are tempted on solemn rhetorical occasions). Mr.

Kennedy, not a man to mince words, shot back, 'What about the Gettysburg Address?' 'Yes,' Ascoli said, 'that is another example of what I mean. The American civil war was said to be testing not just whether this nation can long endure, but whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are to resolve not just that this nation's government of, by, and for the people shall not perish, but that such government shall not perish from the earth—as though the whole history of liberty in the entire globe depended upon what happened in this one young republic.' We could argue about the historical situation—whether the United States did, in 1863, indeed, still represent something of a world test for popular government on a large scale.

But again, setting that aside, let us look at what Lincoln was doing in context.Abraham Lincoln was not the editor-publisher of a liberal magazine making fancy critical points to his self-selected readership, or a theologian-preacher thundering away at the nation's sins and defects, or a philosopher capturing timeless ideas in his closet, or a Boston literary man bravely striking postures beside his pond for a handful of readers.Lincoln had the rhetorical obligations of an American president. He was obligated to be moral rhetor to the whole nation. The key to being a rhetor—one who persuades—is always the audience.

To whom is the rhetor speaking? Does the rhetor find a point of meeting, a commonality, between himself and his audience to try to bring them along to his point? The question about the utterances of presidents—Abraham Lincoln, John F.

Kennedy, James K. Polk, Bill Clinton—is how well they perform their particular highly constrained rhetorical obligation—to address the whole people of a nation that has, out of its past, a very high moral concept of itself. A president does not fulfill his rhetorical obligation by higher criticism, nihilism, skepticism, cultural relativism, disinterested philosophical speculation, or exercises in deconstruction of national ideals; he works within a received and given set of national myths and ideas.

The question is, What does he do with them?Now back to the Gettysburg Address. It is true that Lincoln made those universalistic claims, but not invidiously. Not as national boasting.

Not as a claim of superiority. Lincoln's treatment of America's role in the moral history of the human race is rather that a great possibility and hope for all peoples has been entrusted to us Americans: The question is, what will we do with it?If we were to try to match biblical references with Reinhold Niebuhr, we might say that the applicable text, for Lincoln's sense of America's is not what Niebuhr to his whole of the God that we are not as other but rather the of in is of shall be if we think to the to last of the the severe of the speaking to only have I of the people of the will I about the Gettysburg Address. it about America's Lincoln's point is that this moral significance is not and is a he to his resolve that there be a new of a was with the of That the there certainly was a large claim about the nation's moral significance for the the application was that it in the The nation to be in to fulfill that The be dedicated to the to the great before high resolve be that this nation have, not the freedom but a new of we that Lincoln did indeed the United States as distinctive even and that or in a sense in moral we that he his as distinctive not in or or in but in its political and social and He did not a or an or a superior to Lincoln's use of the Declaration in the let us an earlier in the Lincoln's did not he would from it a or a to this nation's will on or from it that this nation in with another was in the Lincoln first to as a in his first participation in the national government was his to the the annual message of the and he was by what he one in the the new then have that, just years he would himself be a But one could certainly have that, if that Lincoln's message would be very different from that of James K. message is to see The most of long and worked in with Lincoln was its and for the nation, and for the an of this nation's in then to at this nation's moral in particular the war with He and at point for the not just for that first of American on American on the but also for and before the war and for and a to was always And the United States the were always in the and liberal Lincoln would in his of the that President to himself into that it would be if the United States did not take a of And the the more it would be and the more the United States would to take of in the said, the of himself was even tempted by that American to take all of did Lincoln do in to this first of the from to his and his not represent Lincoln at his are and in a few rather personal and about in a But they certainly do represent a American the both of and of the war back in the Western of Illinois, and the of to Lincoln joined with the which was in the He not only joined it, but even as a one of the and That Lincoln's was more than an of his was by the he making in even the was He would the case in a more worthy way in those with and particularly in a he wrote to a of the war in his the Mr. John He his to the consider those United States by into a for to so consider had they been by any nation on earth, the of our I know would I is the would that do to do even so to a striking to Lincoln of writing would one of the great Lincoln was a with the most the of the the in the said on the that God had been 'the and to be 'the of the world to He has given us the spirit of to the of reaction the earth.

He has made us in government and it not for such a as this the world would into and And of all our race He has the American people as his nation to in the of the problem with this of than the in the last Lincoln, in to his great did not claim a to and they may did not the American in the with which did not claim that God had out a superior role for the United States Lincoln would about in the and it would be in different from and did not a racial or for the worthy social and of the United or or or not the of the by in the he did that are to his but he at considerable political to the of the not only like the statements from he also both and a of moral superiority. This first in his address when he was about better and to deal as the then was appeared in about the people of the in his address in The stated are as we would he did once use the phrase to he did it in a different way from and many Lincoln the phrase when he spoke in the New in on February 1861, on the way to the White He spoke as he did not like to he remembered his of of and his that there was an national And he said that he himself would be most indeed if he could be in the of the and of his He the which the phrase God did not say to You are my I have from all the other peoples of the earth, to be a somewhat about Lincoln and his use of the Declaration of Independence the great in his in to his New in with into his Lincoln's Declaration from the and from has in American that the Declaration was not but a and a not only of the of or the Congress as a whole improved the but of the years of in the also that Lincoln's use of the Declaration in the was by or had to the like and had the of did the in on which Lincoln to do the great out in when it wasn't But Lincoln the Declaration more more and more than and the American the Declaration to be a the for a new nation's Lincoln and the other of in the the Declaration as a a moral the nation's moral essence and Jefferson and the first the most of the Declaration were the of the of the list of the long of that the of that and the solemn at the Richard rather than from that the is now and that and of to free and Lincoln and leaders in the those and the entire is on the in the second in praised Jefferson a as Lincoln called it, the of a for national by a he to in he had 'the and to an applicable to all at all And it is only this of abstract to which Lincoln and his fellow of in the We may in say abstract and are human of the and And the greatest of this is What the Declaration in their and was in this we That all are And the application of that abstract now was that had to those of he was for and for in the which was all and with racial Lincoln had to be in for racial That Jefferson had put that abstract into the and that the Declaration had such were great rhetorical We have that when in the debates made on Lincoln's of the Lincoln made the to that his But he to the The Declaration said that all are to the and not his was the in that time and his he made of the the that made of the other he and those who had said in the context of the about race and that the are or that the affirmation of is a to his to the Declaration and the Lincoln the moral rhetor would then that who had said that sort of in Independence Hall years would have been by the and into the Lincoln was the between the spirit of who that are The meaning was racial his use of the Declaration in the in in the great debates of 1858, Lincoln was still a rhetorical the of race was He were in a of opinion to for the of and even the of the He this by years hear of in the world that the had in the Declaration that it did not at and when were of were not the point is Lincoln was the Declaration as a of human which in context racial Jefferson and the founders also had had that meaning of what they and it, but that was not the primary and most meaning. It was not what they first of as the was in the of the and of the and to the by The primary meaning in those would that we in America have the for to the with and set up our own government.

The of in the did to the of in the and did many of the founders to the between the and human in a way that Lincoln and some would But that was not the primary significance then of the the founders, their own of was the primary for Lincoln and the of the of was the primary application. that application at and the perceived moral of the nation, more its universalistic of Lincoln's as a for America's moral meaning has to do not with content but with tone, and in his on the with the to last of the do we do we as his of from Lincoln that has that said is a he said, something that Lincoln's in has a time that something that Lincoln's has, and into an something which is of a better a of I think that is as as it but to something on my Lincoln's writing a not only of but also of moral that is personally does the of writing Jefferson in to Lincoln up a phrase in another by let that of the Declaration has a of superior that the primary moral Lincoln's best utterances the to and to look at the world in a and to a more sober of the own moral and Lincoln's best the to see in a than before and to think of his own role in a way than we still the we years I would say that Lincoln's utterances have an that does Lincoln by his to 'the of our as does not of the Declaration away on up that long of all of them and a of them even being to the for American is a of Lincoln's by that he even under the as a of the entire nation, not of one part of it, an of the for which we all are And as to what to the he said just that all that was its as being not only in the but particularly in Congress as to the to 'our only by to document the kind of moral to which all moral particularly in high are the two not only in with different cultural in the Lincoln in the also in different political with Jefferson giving voice to a an with whom he was Lincoln in a War with whom he to so think the is the in utterances do not the moral The point is to a moral Lincoln's more more is more than It a and a different within which and even is The is the example, but not the only We might think also of the ending of the for which Lincoln out of his appeal to the of the passage at the of the 1862 message with the phrase 'the last best hope of of the at the of the in there are many other some of them just a phrase or a a to a in for example, he himself and shall do in What I deal with is for That of the of the on which they and of the of their Lincoln would say the Lincoln's the he said, 'the has meaning that those were than those of his Lincoln is even yet the greatest of all for thinking about the world moral their nation.