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| Chuck Roots |
Roots in Ripon
20
June 2016
Chuck Roots
Lessons from
Lincoln
I find great comfort and strength from reading
the writings of our nation’s more noble characters, not the least of which is
Abraham Lincoln. Often maligned today by revisionist historians who have no
appreciation nor understanding of the times within which our predecessors
lived, President Abe Lincoln was as plain and ordinary as a fence post.
But, oh! the depth of this man! Here was a
thinking man, a man who wrestled with the hard issues of life long before the
mantle of President of the United States was placed upon his shoulders.
Born in 1809, Lincoln grew up in a log cabin,
working the land by the sweat of his brow. He also had an unquenchable thirst
for knowledge, reading at night by the glow of the coals in the fireplace. He
would walk miles to borrow a book to read, and then return it again. He was a
great listener, taking the time to hear people recount their troubles and woes,
a practice he continued even during his time in the White House.
However, the defining event that framed Abraham
Lincoln and his legacy would be the Civil War. A side note to his political
career was the fact that he was the first Republican to run for president, in
the election of 1860. He faced two daunting issues even before he assumed the
office of President. First – the issue of slavery was constantly being bandied
about from the country roads of America to the Halls of Congress. This volatile
topic had been discussed and debated ad
nausea in America since the early 1830s. Second – several Southern states
threatened to secede from the Union if Lincoln were elected. These states
followed through with their threat so that Lincoln had the unenviable task of
trying to keep the nation unified while supporters and supporting states
wavered.
Lincoln’s goal was to end slavery, but not at the
expense of destroying the nation. Above all else, the Union must be maintained.
He took office intending to allow slavery to continue, but only in the states
where it was legalized. The greatest impact would be on the Southern states.
States that did not have laws allowing slavery could not enact them, forcing
slavery to be confined to “slave states” only. Lincoln’s hope was that Southern
states would eventually end slavery due to public pressure. A Civil War was not
the preferred manner to handle this monstrous wrong that had been foisted upon
an entire group of people simply because of skin color.
When still in his 20s, Lincoln wrote a letter to
his friend, Joshua Speed who was a slaveholder. “I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations, under the
Constitution, in regards to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor
creatures hunted down and caught and carried back to their stripes and
unrewarded toils; I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841, you and I had together
a tedious low-water trip on a steamboat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may
remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there
were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with irons. That sight
was a continual torment to me; I see something like it every time I touch the
Ohio, or any other slave border. It is hardly fair for you to assume that I
have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of
making me miserable.”
Later in 1855, Lincoln again writes to Joshua
Speed. “How can anyone who abhors the
oppression of Negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our
progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began
by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all
men are created equal, except Negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it
will read ‘all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and
Catholics.’ When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country
where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where
despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” (The
Know-Nothing Party, also known as the American Party in the 1840s-1850s,
opposed immigrants and followers of the Catholic Church).
In a letter to H.L. Pierce in 1859, Lincoln
wrote, “This is a world of compensation;
and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny
freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God, cannot
long retain it.”
In a very dark time, following the Union forces
losing to the Confederate forces in the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second
Battle of Manassas) in August of 1862, General Lee’s massive forces were moving
into Northern states to strike a blow to perhaps turn the tide in favor of the
Southern Cause. Union troops stopped Lee at the Battle of Antietam in September
of 1862. Lincoln wrote, “I made a solemn
vow before God, that if General Lee were driven back from Pennsylvania, I would
crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves.”
Ignoring the Dred
Scott v. Sanford decision by the Supreme Court in 1857 in which Chief
Justice Roger B. Taney decided that “slaves
were not persons or citizens, but were the property of the owner, the same as
their body, horse, cattle, etc., and the owner had the freedom of choice to
decide what they wanted to do with their own property,” Lincoln made good
on his promise and penned the Emancipation
Proclamation which was to go into effect as of January 1, 1863. It stated
that “all persons held as slaves within
any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in
rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever
free…” The document granted the right to life, freedom and citizenship to
all persons regardless of race, origin, circumstance, etc.
No wonder Lincoln was revered by the people!
Edwin Markham wrote a poem entitled, “Lincoln: Man of the People.” One portion
reads, “Up from log cabin to the Capitol,
one fire was on his spirit, one resolve – To send the keen ax to the root of
wrong, clearing a free way for the feet of God, the eyes of conscience testing
every stroke, to make his deed the measure of a man. He built the rail-pile as
he built the State, pouring his splendid strength through every blow: The grip
that swung the ax in Illinois was on the pen that set a people free.”
This is one of Chuck Roots best columns.
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