The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln by Phillip Shaw Paludan University of Kansas Press, 1994
A scholarly and insightful overview of Lincoln's administration and leadership style, Phillip Shaw Paludan's The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln offers an enlightening analysis of the workings of Lincoln's mind while bringing to life the events and personalities that surrounded the president. Paludan's prose is lucid, at times dense with detail but never flounders in minutia.
Paludan tackles the material chronologically, but takes a refreshing thematic approach to each of the 16 chapters, for example: "Forging the Resources of War: January to February 1862"; "Cabinet Crisis: December 1862" ; "Emancipation and the Limits of Dissent: January to June 1863."
We see Lincoln balancing conflicting ideals, juggling crises, and managing personnel for maximum effect. Military events are covered in a broad but accurate brush, and Paludan places them in the context of the myriad other concerns facing Lincoln: midterm elections, intra-party rivalries, the threat of foreign intervention, fostering economic growth and expansion. Among a cacophony of competing voices, and with the war both as a backdrop and the catalyst, Lincoln turned his party's vision of a new America into a new version of America:
"The elections of 1863 asked voters how they felt about entering their future so quickly.... When Democrats offered the old world in 1863, the large majority responded that they were ready to accept a new day."
Paludan's analysis of the evolution and impact of the Emancipation Proclamation is the clearest and most profound ever encountered. We are given both the broad political, cultural, military, and constitutional milieu, and a probing analysis of the president's thought process:
"Lincoln did not, as some charged, free the slaves only in places where he could not reach them; he freed the slaves in the only place he could legally reach them - in places that he ruled under presidential war powers. The language of the great deed had to be a lawyer's language because Lincoln was taking legal action. He was placing the great ideal of freedom within the constitutional fabric - the only place that it could have life in a constitutional republic."
Paludan presents us with a visionary president who successfully melded the competing desires of radical abolition and conservative preservation of the Constitution, by defining it as a document of Liberty. "An older idea of liberty from government was being transformed into a vision of liberty because of government." We also see how Lincoln quickly and deftly learned from his mistakes: to thwart discord among his cabinet; or, after indulging the inert McClellan with excessive patience, he wasted little time on Burnside and Hooker.
Delegating without ever relinquishing ultimate authority, letting actors and events play out until his intervention was required, Lincoln steered the nation through its greatest peril, while never once losing sight of its founding principles.
I've really enjoyed some of your recent threads on PUMA, third parties, Whigs, etc. Funny how we caring voters seem to always know what we don’t want but have a harder time articulating what it is we want -beyond the usual top-level wish list items like honesty, fair representation, transparency and so on - in our government. Typically these wish list items are the kinds of things that any political party include in their mission statements-whether they are manifest in reality or not.
This made me think about why it is easier for us to discredit the array of options before us rather than say "This is what the right political party would look like for me." What membership drives depend on for any option is one of two things: Either the people they are trying to reach are also well-informed about the issues before them (let's get the ball rolling) or, ideally, the sign-up rosters are filled with those who are not well-informed and just throw their lot in with a group that kind of sounds like what they want and they aren't really sure, but what the heck it's better than the other guys! (let's make the ball bigger and keep it rolling). The proof of this is in the state of the two party system that exists today. Many people cite one party or the other as being the standard bearer of certain "core values" that simply no longer exist (if they ever did) in these parties and, more likely, is mere propaganda that neither party actually hopes for or plans to attain. I know that the so-called 'ideals' of the Democratic party had a lot to do with voter choice in this last election that had nothing to do with the Democratic party's presidential candidate or its leadership's vision. What is deciding the real values of both parties at the moment are primarily the vision and values of a very few people within each party and the rest of us are just along for the ride- because we claim that's our historic party affiliation and we believe that whatever else our party may want, we still believe in a mythical set of ideals that will carry the day and, hopefully, us along with it. A personal example would be that I always thought that my party were the "good guys"; that whatever mistakes or bad things that came out of my party's existence happened because of external circumstances. I know, naive, right? And I thought I was a pretty well-informed citizen.
I think the reason we cannot identify a suitable party affiliation for ourselves or are surprised when our party of choice disappoints is that we don't have a complete set of criteria or perhaps more importantly, clear reasons why we think whatever criteria we have is important to us. So, we go off in search of something or a group that seems to represent us; usually coming up empty handed for the same original reasons. There has been talk of resurrecting the "old" party (of both the Dems and the Reps), but even that doesn't get us where we want to go because if we do any kind of light research we are more likely to come up with personalities (past presidents or other elected officials) that defined the party and not today's reality of that party. Each party's platforms change from election to election. And in recent decades, especially, each party's planks change radically based on dishonest use of wedge issues or winning strategy that sways large blocs of voters. This may be a good way to win elections, but it's no way to run a party or a country. So why is it that neither party satisfies most Americans? And why is it that when contemplating a new, third party is there so much distrust about who or what may be behind such a proposal? What is missing?
I wondered why. So I started to look at the group that is the most vocal about failed government: "We The People." What I've found, unsurprisingly, is that throughout our history (even within ten years of the signing of the Declaration of Independence) Americans have found it a lot easier to blame political parties for failures in government. Our political parties after all, we reason, set the agenda for how government acts. "We The People" are wholly blameless for this state of affairs, or so we have mythologized. But back in 2004, when Bush junior won reelection, in part, because of a nutty claim made about the horrors of gay marriage I began to question the mental acuity of a large swath of my fellow citizens. Are we really that stupid?
An astute historian and author, Rick Shenkman, asks the question in his book by the same title, "Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter" And it's a rather easy, yet difficult-to-say, answer: "Very." Now before anyone gets defensive about Shenkman's claim let's take a ride in Mr. Peabody's WABAC Machine
Here are some interesting stats related to one of this country's biggest mistakes: (Shenkman writes) "In January 2003, three months before our invasion of Iraq, the survey-takers found that a majority of Americans falsely believed that "Iraq played an important role in 9/11" Over the next year and half PIPA polls indicated that a persistent 57 percent believed that Saddam Hussein was helping al Qaeda at the time we were attacked. (Other polls came up with higher numbers. For instance, in September 2003, a Washington Post poll found that 70 percent of Americans believed Saddam was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks.) In the spring of 2004 the 9/11 Commission flatly stated that Saddam had not provided support to al Qaeda. The Commission's findings received saturation coverage. Nonetheless, in August of the same year, according to a PIPA poll, 50 percent were still insisting that Saddam had given "substantial" support to al Qaeda. (A full two years later, in 2006, a Zogby International poll indicated that 46 percent of Americans continued to believe that "there is a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.")".
Did you get the part: "The Commission's findings received saturation coverage."?
I won't go into the statistical details of American's belief in WMD. But Shenkman concludes this passage by reminding us that the illusions held by Americans regarding Hussein and his mythical support of al Qaeda drew a lot of us into supporting the actions of our Congress and the President in 2003. I know, you and I weren't one of them. And instead of laying the blame for terrorism on specific groups and individuals we are now stuck with another false idea that fuels national (and irrational) fears of nameless, faceless terrorists popping up from under manhole covers. You know, the ones that we are warring on in our "War on Terror." During the Cold War our enemy was described as the "Ten foot threat." Back then we built backyard bunkers and stockpiled 20 years' worth of beef jerky and Tang. This time we spend 4 hours waiting in line at the airport to hop a commuter between Seattle and Spokane and stockpile plastic sheeting and duct tape. Do these seem like smart responses to an ill-defined threat?
So what has this all got to do with choosing a political party that represents our beliefs? Well, it's what we believe, whether it's true or not, that motivates our choice of affiliation and leaves us vulnerable to what they tell us. It's what we believe (true or not) that gains our vote and puts their people in our senates, houses, the U.S. Congress and the White House. It really sounds too fundamental to state, doesn't it? For those, like me, who need a clearer declaration: We need to stop (STOP!) putting the responsibility for running this country into the hands of our elected officials! We cannot strut around with a sense of warm, self-congratulatory satisfaction just because we exercised our right to vote and leave it at that. We love to invoke the Founder's words of "We The People", but our sense of duty to that privilege seems to vanish after the poll volunteer plants an "I Voted" pin on our lapel. And let's be honest, there's at least even odds that we can be smug about the fact that "I didn't vote for him/her". Cold consolation if it was good government you really wanted.
There's a lot not covered here; media's dumbing politics down, for example. But these things we know: The media lies, politicians lie and C-SPAN is incredibly tedious. What's to be done, then?
In order to integrate something else, we must first disintegrate what we already know. And there will be a period of feeling like you've just gone insane because if you're not sure about "anything, anymore it's a little crazy-making. But hang in there because it's well worth the discomfort.
-We must denounce our faith in political parties and what they say they stand for. All of them. Even the parties of yore. We cannot see the forest for the trees when all we often claim to know anyway is really just the personalities of FDR, Lincoln, Kennedy, Clinton, LBJ or Carter and the rest. And besides, unless you really know the morphing history of political parties in this country you should probably not add to the misinformation. The party you affiliate with today holds little resemblance to its origins just as the party you seek to build will look nothing like its namesake today. That goes double for labels that are meaningless in today's political environment like "liberal", "conservative", "progressive", "far right", "far left" and so on. Because as soon as you figure out who you think you are under these labels, you stop thinking. You stop thinking because you've identified yourself with someone else or some group who is going to do your thinking for you. Don't even call yourself "Independent" because the parties and the politicians already have a plan to appeal to your ego and your vote. Or worse, they've written you off as someone who isn't worth listening to because their pollsters have told them you can' t get them elected. When I say "I'm an American of voting age. Whatcha got for me?" I'm in a better negotiating position. And all of a sudden I'm looking at politics, politicians and issues in an entirely different way.
-Invest in your knowledge of American history (including economics). You're an American-read the owner's manual. If it's never been your subject, try to think of it as a mandatory fact-finding mission, a treasure hunt, a puzzle to solve. You'll find as I did that history, especially our history, is stranger and more surprising and fascinating than Ripley's Believe it or Not. And before you know it, you'll be able to figure out why some of today's problems go back to this country's genesis and how it is that so many vocal pundits and political analysts get it wrong. You'll also discover that some of our current problems are really not as dire as we're lead to believe and there's a calming aspect to that. I know it's popular to disparage revisionist history, but we are living at a time when the big picture is plainer than ever because the unexpected benefit spawned by the backlash to "revised" history has laid bare a lot of once-hidden details. Read as many points of view as you can; soon a pattern will emerge that gives you greater confidence in the facts; a confidence that gives you greater personal freedom to speak out with conviction and to demand answers that actually make some sense.
- Figure out what is important to you and what you think should be important to your country and prioritize your list. Use your own list to go shopping for candidates and find out if you can help recruit someone you think would make a good candidate if those running for or already in office aren't meeting your criteria. You'd be surprised how many others are probably thinking the same thing. Maybe you should fill that council vacancy yourself.
- Know the facts of important issues of the day. If you can't find them on TV (which you won't), make a new friend of a librarian or a blogger whose research you trust. Be sure to follow office holders' voting records and find out who they owe for their $uccess. It's easy to do. Everyone has a web page and the newspaper chronicles this, too.
- Don't be like them. When you're wrong about something, admit it to yourself. We tend to seek any kind of confirmation for what we believe even if deep down we know it's probably inaccurate. We can be passionate about something without invoking half-truths, omitting facts or citing questionable or unchecked sources. It's called being intellectually honest. That other thing is called 'politics'. And isn't that what drove us to go hunting for a new party in the first place? Focus instead on good government; great politician's primary aim is to get reelected, but good and wise stewards of the people's will get my vote from now on. When we stop rewarding political behavior over earnest representation, the political cleverness will stop. Most parents understand this theory.
- Don't waste too much of your time pointing out others' willful ignorance. Thomas Jefferson said: "Do not be too severe upon the errors of people, but reclaim them by enlightening them." You can only do this if you know what you're talking about. Yes, there are some people who just want to be right, but mostly they want to know why you think what you think. Rely instead on your solid knowledge of history, candidates, elected officials and issues of the day and people will seek you out for your wise counsel. The next step is to help others to "not be like them."
And two quotes to end this treatise: JFK: "The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie-deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth-persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." See, even a master mythologist (remember "Camelot"?) can state a pithy truth.
And from Jefferson, again: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
If there is one thing I learned in the 2008 Presidential election cycle it is that each generation thinks they are the first and only generation that are truly post-racial, anti-discrimination, and totally and completely without prejudice and further, that their elders and all previous generations are racists.
Obama's youthful supporters think they are morally superior to current and past generations because they are not racist. And they prove that by constantly calling just about everyone else a racist. Obama's youth believe that they are the only generation to deal with race, racism, and discrimination in this country, ever.
I don't know what schools are teaching these days, but based on the inaccuracies spouted by many, it certainly is not the real history of the fight for racial equality in this country.
As I wrote in Moving On, While Not Forgetting, America's racial history and movement toward equality for all, "has been slow, plodding, and imperfect."
But a history DOES exist. Even before the American Revolution, Rhode Island banned the import of slaves, and by 1786 all of the colonies except Georgia at least limited the import of slaves.
In 1787 the Northwest Ordinance banned expansion of slavery north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River. Following the American Revolution many states banned slavery and freed blacks. Many individuals wrote anti-slavery publications and in 1833 William Lloyd Garrison founded The American Anti-Slavery Society. Between 1833 and 1852, when Uncle Tom's Cabin was published, there were many people discussing and working to end slavery and discrimination.
Moving into modern history FDR, HST, DDE, JFK & RFK, and LBJ all discussed race relations with the American people and worked to pass civil rights legislation, and the courts concurred with these landmark pieces of legislation. A lot of civil and uncivil discussions about race occurred during this time period.
In the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and the 1960's many whites marched along side blacks, especially white religious leaders. Many were beaten, shed blood and or died for that cause. In the summer of 1964 three white activists working in Mississippi, Andrew Goodman, James Cheney, and Michael Schwerner were murdered for registering black people to vote.
Many American citizens have been discussing inequalities, listening to black people, and working to achieve racial equality throughout all of our history. I don't want to write a comprehensive history lesson here, I am only trying to illustrate that there has always been ongoing discussions of race relations in this country. Every generation in America has dealt with and held discussions about and have listened to, as Matt so poignantly writes "...black people's view of race..."
When I first began teaching in the late sixties and in the early seventies, and as my school district moved to integrate first the staff and then the schools themselves I was part of many discussion groups where blacks and whites shared histories and visions for the future. We shared cultural values and norms. I was a member of my church's committee on racial equality and was their representative to my city's committee on racial equality. Again, I both discussed and listened to..."black people's view of race..."
But now I have to ask, what is the point? Do you want me to do more listening? Why? Why do I have to listen to and participate in more discussion? I am not into self-flagellation for the past sins of others just for the sake of discussion. Haven't we moved beyond the talking about race stage? And if we haven't moved beyond the talking phase, why haven't we?
Shouldn't we move to another or different level on the race issue? I thought I had. I live in a multi-cultural neighborhood. I like and want that. The nation just elected its first black President. We have come a long way in just my brief lifetime. I saw a cross burning on the block I lived on at age six, and today we have a black President. I daresay a lot of discussion has taken place to get to this point in history.
What else am I supposed to do?
When do we move beyond race and racial grievances? When do we move above it all?
Are we afraid to move beyond just discussing, "people's views of race"? Are we afraid to go beyond racial grievances? Are we afraid to talk about poor education? Are we really afraid to talk about high crime rates? Do we continue to ignore low aspirations?
If he were a leader, and if he really cared for black people, Obama himself could have moved the discussion beyond the racist and victim meme to a higher plane. To say I am disappointed he did not is an understatement and contributed to why I could not vote for him. He used racism as a cheap political ploy.
So now I have to ask: Isn't it time for a new agenda? Isn't it time to move to a higher plane?
Someone please explain, discuss, and answer those questions.
