The first part of this series on the
Republican party examined how their party platform from 1860 to 1944
developed over time and abandoned many of its original planks.
Though the newborn party was in support of immigrants, federal power,
internal improvements, and public education, it eventually
discarded or reversed its opinion on all of these. As the rapid
expansion of industry began in the 1880s, the party began to reject
urban workers in favor of their employers, and it did this because it
didn't understand, or care for, the values of Lincoln. It rarely
looked back. Though the previous article ended the examination of
the Republican party platform in 1944, it continued its evolution
from the original platform to what it is today. In this new
conservatism, Reagan embodied a changed Republican vision. His
beliefs were not Lincoln's beliefs. And so it seems foolish to
announce
the death of Lincoln's party with the victory of Donald Trump, when
it is no longer his, but instead has become the party of Ronald
Reagan and Barry Goldwater.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It could be said that Lincoln's
presidency was overshadowed by the Civil War. The conflict was the
result of southern Democrats refusal to listen to Lincoln's plan for
the country. They tried to preserve slavery by seceding, which only
brought slavery to an end many years before Lincoln believed
possible.
Yet, it could also be that the Civil
War allowed Lincoln to fully realize his conception of government,
which his fellow Republican's failed to grasp because of the chaos of
war.
For Lincoln, equality was the crucial
right of humanity. He used the opening of Declaration of
Independence as his primary source, repeating that “all men are
created equal” in both his Senatorial race against Stephen Douglas
and the Gettysburg address. He meant that all people, regardless of
their color were equal, as far the inalienable rights of the
Deceleration declared. He did not mean that all people were equal in
intelligence or strength, but that they had the same rights as
everyone else. In its most obvious form, this was the right of
African Americans to be free of slavery. Though Lincoln had no plans
to interfere with slavery in the South, he did plan to end slavery in
the United States. He and the modern Republicans believed that
denied it room to expand, slavery would die of its own accord. These
moderate Republicans of 1860 campaigned on the promise to prohibit
slavery in any territories or newly formed states. In another forty
years, Lincoln believed, slavery would have exhausted itself and
vanished.
Lincoln, it must be remembered,
retreated from politics after he completed his first term in the
House of Representatives in 1849. The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854
enraged his idea of equality and he returned to politics, campaigning
against Stephen Douglas (the main supporter of the Act) for the
Senate seat in Illinois. What upset him about the Act was that it
allowed the settlers of the territories to decide whether to enter
the Union as free or slave states. Lincoln saw this as a betrayal of
the statement that all men are created equal. He believed the
equality of African Americans preempted the slaveholders liberty to
own people. While he was willing to approach the issue of slavery in
the South practically and politically, he saw no reason to allow it
to expand. When Lincoln was drawn into war with the seceding states
(a secession he did not desire, but would not permit even if it meant
war), he was affirming the belief that the liberty of some states and
some persons of their society would not be allowed to overrule the
equality of all the states and of the African Americans bound in
slavery.
But equality wasn't only about the
issue of slavery. It was just as important in the sphere of work, or
as Lincoln commonly referred to it: labor and capital. In his first
address to Congress
(1861), he spent a significant time discussing the economy of the
United States, and said, “Labor is prior and independent of capital
… labor is superior to capital, and deserves of much higher
consideration”. He did not refer to independent farmers, but to
the growing industry of the United States. Nor did he advocate
socialism or communism: government control of production. His belief
was more personal. Lincoln believed that every person had the right
to progress economically. To start at the beginning of adulthood
with little, but to learn under older hands, then to work, and
finally move upwards and teach others. He thought all should have,
“A fair chance, in the race of life.” But this didn't translate
to laissez-faire economics. He didn't think government should take
no part, as modern Republican's do, but should in fact work to ensure
an equal system and chance for every person. Though he came from the
most destitute of backgrounds he did not believe as Social Darwinists
did, that those of poor circumstance and poor achievements were
unworthy of aid.
Particularly he was for the rights of
citizens. Government, Lincoln claimed, should be “for the people”.
It did not oppose freedom and equality but enhanced them. Its role
was to “clear the path”, to “do for a community of people,
whatever they need to have done, but can not do”. He meant that
citizens separately can't always achieve, but in the aggregate they
could aid one another for greater prosperity. Citizens can succeed
with their business, but sometimes they need things they can't build
on their own. This inspired Lincoln support of government
improvements, especially in transportation: roads, railways, and
canals.
He also valued the laborer over the
capitalist, while appreciating both. He wanted the laborers, to have
the rights to the “fruit of their labor.” Even more telling he
said in 1859,
“The democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be
absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man's right of
property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the
dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.” If
there were ever a competing claim between the working man and the
economy, the working man would take precedence. Lincoln saw the
right to rise as the central idea in the American dream. Of course,
this individual advancement should be achieved through work. “Work,
work, work, is the main thing,” he said. But he recognized that
the work of the capitalist to earn money could not impinge on the
right of the laborer to rise. That the laborer should have the
opportunity to rise, because of, and not in spite of his environment.
It should not be a struggle to rise, but a natural progress open to
every American. And the Federal Government did not exist to free
capital, but to assist every American in their right to have a fair
and equal opportunity to achieve.
He thought that capitalists often used
liberty to bind the arms of labor. In 1864 he said, “We all
declare for liberty, but … we do not mean the same thing. …
Liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and
the product of his labor, while with others the same word may mean
for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of
other men's labor.” He says that some (capitalists) use the byword
of liberty to say everyone is free to do whatever they want, but the
capitalist really meant business is free to control others and
acquire what has been rightfully earned. Lincoln's believed liberty
meant everyone is free to work and receive what they have earned in
their effort. The goal of Lincoln's liberty is for everyone to lift
themselves up with the aid of the community: local, state, and
federal. Everyone! The goal of the other type of liberty is for the
exceptional citizens to lift themselves up by climbing upon the backs
of the masses.
As has already been alluded to, his
ideas of equality and a right to personal economic improvement for
everyone, required a strong central government. The federal
government of Lincoln had the responsibility to advance the well
being of its citizens. A proper government can aid the conditions of
equality and freedom necessary for a just society. His government
supported an array of activities; infrastructure improvements, the
Freedman's Bureau, Reconstruction, paper money, and assistance for
the poor. To complete his project of an active state, Lincoln
introduced the first progressive tax in 1862, with three income
brackets. In this way, Lincoln became the first activist president
dedicated to the idea “that government of the people, by the
people, for the people” is the best government. Not “the
government which governs least”.
After Lincoln, these three core tenants
(equality above all, liberty of labor, and supreme federal
government) of his political philosophy floundered. His occured
because they were not fully developed in the party's platform, the
members of his party did not even see these beliefs, and over time
they faded entirely from the Republican party. Before they were
finally handed over to the Democratic Party, there was one Republican
President that made a noble effort to revive these progressive
aspects of Lincoln.
Next week will be about Theodore
Roosevelt.
The Republicans
Series:
Sources:
All quotes are from Abraham Lincoln
A Just and Generous Nation by
Harold Holzer
The Great Courses: Cycles of
American Political Thought by Joseph Kobylka
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