The Republicans: The Three Core Tenets of Lincoln


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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