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Abraham Lincoln as revolutionary otto H. olsen With the possible exception of his beard, there is little about Abraham Lincoln that fits the modern, popular concept of a revolutionary.1 rather, Lincoln has been associated with qualities that are usually perceived, even by many leftists, as the antithesis of revolutionary. Typically these qualities include some combination of moderate, reasonable, kind, liberal, conservative, pragmatic, flexible, pious and lawabiding.2These hardlyaccordwith the familiarextremism,cruelty, and violence of revolution. And so, the leader of the bloodiest war and one of the most stupendous social transformations in our history endures as a symbol of moderation and the rule of reason and law. There has been little inclination among the new left to consider Lincoln in any way an exemplar of progressive change. Some have been actually hostile, a 1 E 1. An earlier version of this essay was delivered at the Fifth Annual Lincoln Symposium, Springfield, ill., Feb. 12, 1978. i am indebted to William Burr, Larry Lynn, richard Schneirov, and Paul Wolman, graduate students at northern illinois univ., for inspiring the topic. 2.Forexample, JamesG.randall,LincolntheLiberalStatesman(newYork,1947);T.HarryWilliams, “Abraham Lincoln: Pragmatic Democrat” and norman Graebner, “Abraham Lincoln: Conservative Statesman,” both in Graebner (ed.), The Enduring Lincoln (urbana, 1959). Decided exceptions that picture Lincoln as radical or revolutionary are Dwight Lowell Dumond, “virtually an Abolitionist,” in Don e. Fehrenbacher (ed.), The Leadership of Abraham Lincoln (newYork, 1970), and William Burr and others, “Lincoln & the Second American revolution,” in These Times, i (Feb. 9–15, 1977). Civil War History, vol. XXiv no. 3 © 1978 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 2 otto h. olsen 3. Julius Lester, LookOut, Whitey! Black Power’s Gon’Get your Mama! (newYork, 1968), 58;Louis S. Gerteis, From Contraband to Freedman: Federal Policy Toward Southern Blacks, 1861–1865 (Westport, 1973), 4–5, 78, 154:William A. Williams, America Confronts a revolutionary World: 1776–1976 (new York, 1976), 111–14. Steven rosswurm drew my attention to the citation from Williams. 4. For example, Phillip S. Paludan’s bicentennial Lincoln address, “Lincoln, the rule of Law, and the American revolution,” Journal of the illinois State Historical Society, LXX (Feb. 1977): 10–17. The emphasis upon Lincoln as a law and order man relies heavily upon a speech very early in his career before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, ill., on Jan. 27, 1938. This speech was read in its entirety, apparently in response to this essay, at the Abraham Lincoln Association Dinner, Feb. 13, 1978. reflectionof therecenttendencytostressthefailuresratherthantheachievements of the Civil War era and to judge radical republicans by either lost alternatives or present day standards.3 Lincoln’s concessions to racism, his experiments with colonization,hisslowmovementtowardemancipation,hislimitedreconstruction aims, and above all, perhaps, his reasonableness and restraint have encouraged an easy abandonment from the left. Conservatives and moderates, on the other hand, obviously relish the retention of Lincoln as a symbol of their own. But perhaps ourconcepts have become stereotyped by the troubles of the modern world. After all, if it was a revolution that we celebrated on our bicentennial, we have a goodly number of conservative revolutionaries to account for—George Washington , John Adams, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton among others. Those revolutionaries not only lacked beards, but theyalso displayed all the qualitieswe have just associated with Lincoln;and they, too, proceeded with slow and patient deliberation. Just as it was fifteen months from the bombardment at Fort Sumter toLincoln’sdecisiontoproclaimemancipation,so,too,itwasfifteenmonthsfrom Lexington and Concord to the Declaration of independence. A conservative distaste for the concept of revolution in our history also appears to reflect a belief that the American revolution, together with the Constitution , represented something of a finality in social evolution. our system is conceived of as eternal. Jefferson’s speculation about periodically watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants is dismissed as rhetoric, and we assume that our system of elections and constitutional amendment can solve all our social problems in a rational, legal, and peaceful way.4 The one insurmountable difficulty with this hope, as far as the Civil War is concerned, is that it was not fulfilled. The discouraging fact is that our system could not deal sensibly with the obvious anachronism of slavery in the modern world. rational and peaceful...

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