Abraham Lincoln, Philosopher Statesman

Preface

xi PREFACE What makes Lincoln great? The answer to this question inevitably depends on the Nature or character of greatness and the corresponding standard used to judge it. What typifies political greatness as such, and, to what extent does a particular leader embody this standard? Does greatness include goodness? In her award-winning book Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin attributes Lincoln’s “political genius” to his “success in dealing with the strong egos of the men in his cabinet.” His example reveals “that in the hands of a truly great politician the qualities we generally associate with decency and morality—kindness, sensitivity, compassion, honesty, and empathy—can also be impressive political resources.”1 Granted that interpersonal skills and managerial abilities were part of Lincoln’s greatness , his “political genius” cannot be explained in terms of these qualities alone. While Goodwin richly and eloquently details the story of how Lincoln managed his cabinet, her historical narrative does not provide (nor intend to provide) a conceptual framework to identify and evaluate statesmanship as such. This more theoretical aim requires a philosophical account of the Nature or the essence of statesmanship as the marriage of wisdom and power. It necessarily involves a comprehensive inquiry about the function, purpose, and ends of the political art. Such an account of political greatness provides a reliable means of comparison between a true statesman and a mere politician or even a tyrant. What kind of political leadership best characterizes Lincoln then? Was he a pragmatist, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who shunned theoretical inquiry and pursued policies in an experimental trial-and-error manner while evading questions of ultimate meaning? Was he a realist, like Germany ’s Bismarck, who believed that the issues of the day were decided by “blood and iron?” Was he an idealist, like some of the abolitionists and social reformers of the time, whose dedication to abstract moral claims overrode all other political considerations, including the limits of public opinion and the rule of law? Was he a revolutionary who supplanted the founding through a “Second American Revolution,” or was he strictly a conservative leader who preserved the status quo ante? xii PREFACE The purpose of this work is to reveal Lincoln’s “political genius” in terms of the traditional moral vision of statesmanship or statecraft as understood by the epic political philosophers Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, and to do so in an accessible manner. It is my contention that the sixteenth president was a philosopher statesman in whom political thought and action were united. His political greatness combined both theoretical and practical wisdom as those virtues were so clearly and profoundly understood by Aristotle and Aquinas. His speeches contain perennial wisdom about human nature, politics, and democracy. He saved the Union, presided over the end of slavery, and helped give birth to an interracial democracy. I further contend that Lincoln’s character is best understood in terms of Aquinas’s view of magnanimity or greatness of soul, the crowning virtue of statesmanship. True political greatness , according to Aquinas, involves both humility and sacrifice for the common good. The more theoretical aim of this work does not require proof that Lincoln had read either Aristotle or Aquinas. It does, however, require one’s openness to the possibility of timeless truths about human nature and politics. Indeed, Lincoln himself took for granted the belief in an unchanging human nature that served as the basis of philosophical wisdom about politics. After winning a hard fought election in 1864, he declared: “Human-nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak, and as strong; as silly and as wise; as bad and good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged” (emphasis added).2 If human nature does not change, as Lincoln believed, then it behooves us to investigate the enduring wisdom of those great minds throughout history who understood it so clearly and profoundly. By relying on the epic thinkers and books of Western civilization as my guide, I also seek to show the important contribution of normative political philosophy to an understanding of our sixteenth president. This contribution can be summarized in terms of its textual method, its Socratic approach, and its normative evaluation of politics. The method or modus operandi of the political philosopher involves a close textual analysis of primary sources. This is done...