On Lincoln: Civil War History Readers, Volume 3

Only His Stepchildren: Lincoln and the Negro

only his stepchildren 233 only His Stepchildren Lincoln and the Negro Don e. Fehrenbacher if the united States had a patron saint it would no doubt be Abraham Lincoln; and if one undertook to explain Lincoln’s extraordinary hold on the national consciousness, itwould be difficult to find a betterstarting-point than these lines from an undistinguished poem written in 1865:1 one of the people! Born to be Their curious epitome; To share yet rise above Their shifting hate and love. A man of the people and yet something much more, sharing popular passions and yet rising above them—here was the very ideal of a democratic leader, who in his person could somehow mute the natural antagonism between strong leadership and vigorous democracy. Amy Lowell, picking up the same theme half a century later, called Lincoln “an embodiment of the highest form of the 233 E Presented at Gettysburg College, november 19, 1973, as the 12th Annual robert Fortenbaugh Memorial Lecture, and at the College of William and Mary, november 28, 1973, as a James Pinckney Harrison Lecture. 1. richard Henry Stoddard, Abraham Lincoln;an Horatian Ode, cited in roy P. Basler, The Lincoln Legend: A Study in Changing Conceptions (Boston, 1935), 234. Civil War History, vol. XX no. 4 © 1974 by The kent State university Press In order to view this proof accurately, the Overprint Preview Option must be checked in Acrobat Professional or Adobe Reader. Please contact your Customer Service Representative if you have questions about finding the option. Job Name: -- /358884t 234 don e. fehrenbacher 2. ibid., 264–65. 3. David Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon (new York, 1948), 305. 4. John T. Morse Jr., Abraham Lincoln (Boston, 1893), ii, 355. typical American.”2 This paradox of the uncommon common man, splendidly heroic and at the same time appealingly representative, was by no means easy to sustain. The Lincoln tradition, as a consequence, came to embrace two distinct and seemingly incompatible legends—the awkward, amiable, robust, railsplitting, story-telling, frontier folklore hero; and the towering figure of the Great emancipator and Savior of the union, a man of sorrows, Christlike in his character and fate. Biographers have struggled earnestlywith thisconspicuous dualism, buteven when theexcessesof reminiscence and myth are trimmed away, Lincoln remains a puzzling mixture of often conflicting qualities—drollness and melancholy, warmth and reserve, skepticism and piety, humbleness and self-assurance. Furthermore , he is doubly hard to get at because he did not readily reveal his inner self. He left us no diary or memoirs, and his closest friends called him “secretive ” and “shut-mouthed.” Billy Herndon in one of his modest moods declared, “Lincoln is unknown and possibly always will be.”3 Plainly, there is good reason for scholarly caution in any effort to take the measure of such a man. no less plain is the intimate connection between the Lincoln legend and the myth of America. The ambiguities in his popular image and the whisper of enigma in his portraits have probably broadened the appeal of this homespun Westerner, self-made man, essential democrat, and national martyr.Almost anyone can find a way to identify with Lincoln, perhaps because “like Shakespeare . . . he seemed to run through the whole gamut of human nature.”4 Whatever thecomplexof reasons, successive generations of hiscountrymen have accepted Abraham Lincoln as theconsummateAmerican—the representative geniusof the nation.oneconsequence is that he tends toserve as a mirrorforAmericans,who, when they write about him, frequently divulge a good deal about themselves. of course the recurring election of Lincoln as representative American has never been unanimous.Therewasvehement dissent at first from manyunreconstructed rebels, and later from iconoclasts like edgar Lee Masters and cavaliers of the Lost Cause like Lyon Gardiner Tyler. in the mainstream of national life, however, it became increasingly fashionable for individuals and organizations to square themselveswith Lincoln and enlist him in theirenterprises. often this required misquotation ormisrepresentation oroutright invention;but lobbyists and legislators, industrialists and labor leaders, reformers and bosses, Populists, In order to view this proof accurately, the Overprint Preview Option must be checked in Acrobat Professional or Adobe Reader. Please contact your Customer Service Representative if you have questions about finding the option. Job Name: -- /358884t only his stepchildren 235 Progressives, Prohibitionists, and Presidents all wanted him on their side. new Deal Democrats tried to steal him from the republicans, and the American Communist party bracketed him with Lenin. Lincoln, in the words of David...