Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream. By G. S. Boritt. (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1978. Pp. xxiv, 420. $15.00.) There must be a welcome for any new work which makes a serious attempt to place Lincoln in a fresh context. Professor Boritt claims that the clue to understanding the whole Lincoln lies in his economic ideas. The contrast (which Boritt makes more mysterious than it really is) between the run-of-the-mill local politician of the earlier decades and the master-statesman of the White House years is to be explained, or explained away, by a coherent and consistent set ofeconomic ideals and policies which shaped Lincoln's "American dream". This can be reduced to three main propositions: the right of every man to the fruits of his own labour; the right of every man to rise in society by his own efforts; and the sustained growth of the American economy which should be fostered and promoted by positive government policies. It is not difficult to demonstrate Lincoln's adherence to these cherished principles, and Boritt endangers this basic argument only by massive "overkill". He is on much less secure ground when he comes to discuss particular applications and implications of his thesis. First, there is the obvious danger that, if a historian sets out to look for an economic explanation of anything, he is likely to return with nothing but economic answers—and Boritt falls too often into this trap. Then there is the question of what may be defined as economic. The right to the fruits of one's labour, and the "right to rise" embrace far more than economics. They are part of a wider view of society, a broader ideological pattern. Nor are they in any way peculiar to the thinking of Lincoln or even of his time. What Boritt describes for the 1850's and 1860's is little more than the application to Lincoln of the Republican ideology so comprehensively analysed by Eric Foner. What Boritt says of the vigorous support which the Lincoln of the 1830's and 1840's gave to internal improvements, banks and the protective tariff is little more than a demonstration that Lincoln was a sound and orthodox Whig. The shift from the Whig Lincoln to the Republican Lincoln represents the response of an intelligent politician, with sensitive antennae, to the changing priorities of politics at midcentury . Ironically, in view of his emphasis upon economics, Boritt is seldom more persuasive than in demonstrating how Lincoln "left his politics of economics for another substantial road" in the period from 172CIVIL WAR HISTORY the Mexican War to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. What made Lincoln exceptional, perhaps, was neither his economic philosophy nor his antislavery stance, but his ability to articulate both in words which related great issues to the everyday lives of millions. He was the supreme spokesman—and the supreme exemplar—of an ideology based on the "right to rise." Boritt's determination to adhere to his economic interpretation leads him into some extraordinary assertions about Lincoln as war leader. We are asked to believe that the President's readiness to suspend the writ of habeas corpus stemmed from his basic concern for economic rather than political rights. It is seriously suggested that Lincoln's strategic insistence that the Confederate army rather than territory was the prime target reflected his earlier emphasis on population as the measure of economic growth, and his opposition to territorialexpansion. Itis also suggested— one must assume seriously—that the rapid changes in the command of the Army of the Potomac represented the application to war of his philosophy of equal opportunity for all! Boritt also ascribes to economics a high place in Lincoln's thinking on emancipation, as for example in his calculation of the savings to be achieved by a policy of gradual, compensated emancipation. This is surely a misreading of an approach which reveals Lincoln's economic awareness but even more his political resourcefulness. Surely his objective was simply to win over by appeals to self-interest those whom he could not convince by appeals to justice and morality. Boritt is inclined to leap over-confidently...