Claiming Lincoln: Progressivism, Equality, and the Battle for Lincoln's Legacy in Presidential Rhetoric

Introduction

Introduction A B R A HA M L I N C O L N R E M A I N S O N E of the most frequently mentioned figures in American political rhetoric, and we have witnessed Barack Obama’s appeals to the Lincoln image during his recent campaign and in his early speeches as president. Beginning on the eve of the twohundredth anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, Obama’s appeals have created interest among scholars, politicians, and journalists who rush to affirm or debunk the president’s invocation of Lincoln’s legacy, yet this phenomenon is nothing new in American politics. American politicians’ attempts to appropriate the Lincoln image have often turned on an appeal to the American promise of equality, said to be proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, vindicated in the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments, and developed through the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Great Society, the civil rights movement, and beyond. Throughout, politicians have claimed to continue Lincoln’s unfinished work in the name of the American promise. Yet many who have invoked Lincoln’s name have profoundly misunderstood or misrepresented Lincoln’s political thought, particularly his understanding of equality. In his widely influential Lincoln Reconsidered, prominent Lincoln scholar David Donald discussed the American political tradition’s attempt to “get right” with Lincoln. Donald’s fundamental insight is that, as of the 1950s, the jury was still out on the question of Lincoln’s political thought and its influence upon the American political tradition. Until the beginning 4 C L A I M I N G L I N C O L N of the twentieth century, the claim to Lincoln’s political inheritance had predominantly been in the possession of the Republican Party. However, during the Progressive Era, the claim to the Lincoln inheritance became a partisan issue in the 1912 presidential election. William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson all publicly claimed to follow in the Lincolnian tradition. Likewise, in 1932, as part of their heated debate over what could and should be done to address the challenges of the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt engaged in a similar disagreement about just who could plausibly claim to follow in Lincoln’s footsteps. The claim to the Lincoln inheritance had become a major component of presidential rhetoric.1 Given Obama’s appeals to Lincoln in recent years, it appears this is still the case. The dispute over Lincoln in political rhetoric would find a parallel in academia, wherein scholars often disagree, sometimes vehemently, about the nature and scope of Lincoln’s influence on American political development. One finds that sharp, sometimes bitter disagreements persist between serious and thoughtful people as to the character of Lincoln’s political thought. Central to these debates is the meaning and influence of Lincoln’s opinion, famously declared in his Gettysburg Address, that we are a nation “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”2 Many observers,bothcriticalandsupportiveofLincoln,suggestLincolnwascentral in establishing a modern, leveling egalitarianism in American politics. This modern pursuit of equality is said to focus not upon securing the formal equality of individuals before the law or equality of opportunity but, rather, upon equalizing substantive outcomes among both individuals and groups. Generally this pursuit calls for the presence of a strong, centralized national government to pursue such ends. Its proponents often seek to alter or abolish fundamental constitutional structures and procedures (for example, various aspects of federalism, representation, separation of powers, among other institutions) thought to be antidemocratic or reactionary obstacles to the goal of greater equality in American society.3 However, in reality, Lincoln’s pursuit of equality was very different from the egalitarianism often espoused by modern-day academics and politicians, in both principle and practice. Arguing against the institution of slavery and defending the idea of free labor, Lincoln sought to secure individuals’ equal liberty to exercise diverse and necessarily unequal talents in pursuit of their interests, under the rule of law, while expecting an inequality of results or outcomes among individuals in that pursuit. Lincoln understood that this pursuit of equality is moderated by the limited government constitutionalism that follows from Introduction 5 the premise that all men are equally endowed with natural and inalienable rights. Moreover, Lincoln understood that this pursuit must be tempered by a prudential appreciation for the circumstances of political practice. However, beginning in the Progressive Era, political...