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9. Lincoln and the Rhetoric of Freedom
- Southern Illinois University Press
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130 Lincoln and the Rhetoric of Freedom Ronald C. White Jr. [T]his amendment is a King’s cure for all the evils.—Abraham Lincoln, Response to a serenade, February 1, 1865 +ubilant crowds surged towards the White House on the evening of February 1, 1865, one day after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Residents and visitors to Washington converged along the driveway that led to the north portico of the White House. They were coming to offer their thanks to President Abraham Lincoln for his leadership in the successful effort to pass the new amendment that outlawed slavery forever. Earlier that day, Lincoln had signed the Thirteenth Amendment in a poignant ceremony. Many of Lincoln’s friends were surprised that he signed the amendment because they believed his participation was not required by the Constitution. Many of Lincoln’s critics used his signing as the occasion to complain about growing presidential power. In response to the serenade, Lincoln spoke with overflowing emotion to a cheering crowd. He may have spoken extemporaneously on this occasion; however, as president, he had increasingly declined to do so because of too many past missteps. His remarks were reported in accounts by correspondents for the New York Tribune, New York Herald, and New York Times. Their versions of his words did not completely agree with each other. No text in Lincoln’s hand has been found. Toward the end of his brief remarks, Lincoln offered those famous words that became the seal of his belief about the meaning of the amendment: “But this amendment is a King’s cure for all the evils.”1 The crowd burst into applause. But what did Lincoln mean? As I will show, Lincoln’s words point backward and forward to his developing rhetoric of freedom. He rose to political promi- lincoln and the rhetoric of freedom 131 nence as a public speaker in a culture oriented around the spoken word that rewarded those who learned its ways. Lincoln refined his rhetorical skills not only at political rallies but also in numerous courthouses throughout Illinois. Stephen A. Douglas, on the eve of his debates with Lincoln in the summer of 1858, acknowledged that Lincoln was “the strong man of his party—full of wit, facts, dates, and the best stump-speaker, with droll-ways and dry jokes, in the west.”2 During his presidency, Lincoln’s rhetoric grew and changed, exhibiting new dimensions both in content and style. Lincoln was a speaker more than a writer. In our day, we have forgotten the difference between the art of writing and that of speaking. Lincoln’s secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John M. Hay, declared, “Nothing would have more amazed him while he lived than to hear himself called a man of letters.”3 Today’s politicians are often tied to Teleprompters, reading a speech instead of speaking it. They speak not so much to the audience in front of them but to the audiences on the nightly news or the morning newspapers. Lincoln, used to stump speaking and debating in Illinois, spoke to real audiences. For example, in August 1863, Lincoln was invited to speak in Springfield to a massive Republican rally on September 3. He finally decided he could not accept the invitation because he could not leave Washington. He decided to send his speech to be read by his good friend James C. Conkling. The Collected Works of Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, calls this document the “Letter to James C. Conkling,” but it was in truth Lincoln’s speech to the Springfield rally. William O. Stoddard, one of Lincoln’s private secretaries, was present when Lincoln worked on the speech at the oak cabinet table in Lincoln’s office in the White House. Lincoln asked Stoddard whether he might try out some of the speech on him. Stoddard, in one of his memoirs, has left an observation on Lincoln as speaker. “He is more an orator than a writer, and he is quickly warmed up to the place where his voice rises and his long right arm goes out, and he speaks to you somewhat as if you were a hundred thousand people of an audience, and as if he believes that fifty thousand of you do not at all agree with him. He will convince the half of you, if he can, before he has done with it.”4 Today, when we have become accustomed to a phalanx...