Abraham Lincoln' Political Religion - Essay Example

?Abraham Lincoln' Political Religion Lincoln displayed immense faith in the American constitution and all throughout his political career he was governed by the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. It can be stated that Lincoln’s political religion was rooted in the Declaration of Independence; he strongly believed in the universal equality of human rights and upheld the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence. Even though Lincoln never proved himself to be an ardent abolitionist he strongly protested against the extension of slavery to other territories. He emphasized the concept of self-government and strongly believed that the Founders of the Constitution foresaw the abolition of slavery in America in the long run. Lincoln makes it clear that even though the Declaration of Independence was formed by the representatives of thirteen States of the confederacy out of which twelve were slaveholding communities they made provisions in the Constitution to the abolition of slave trade in the long run. However, unlike the abolitionists Lincoln sought to address the issue of slavery within the limits of the Constitution and later his speeches and presidential debates explicitly reinforce his anti-slavery sentiments. This paper seeks to explore Guelzo’s argument that the Declaration of Independence formed the Scripture of Lincoln’s political religion and in doing so the paper also shows how Lincoln has accommodated his political ideologies with the Constitution that binds the Union together. In his 1854 campaign one can find Lincoln upholding the constitution, the Union and the good will of the Founders. He makes it clear that the Founders were always against slavery and they took special efforts to stop the spread of slavery into the Old Northwest Territory. For him, the Founders “could not avoid the unpleasant fact that slavery already existed in the Southern states of the Union, but they had regarded its existence as an anomaly and they tolerated its continuation there as an “argument of necessity” for establishing the national Union” (Guelzo 185-86). Lincoln also goes on to purport that even Missouri winning the administration as a slave state in 1820 and its slave status was only a concession aimed at further spreading slavery into the West. One can also find Lincoln repudiating Douglas’s arguments in favor of the doctrine of self-government and popular sovereignty. While Douglas justified the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 that allowed settlers in the territories to determine through Popular Sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each territory, Lincoln was well aware of the dangers of Kansas-Nebraska. Douglas was of the opinion that “slavery had to be given its chance in the territories because it was the right of free settlers to exercise their popular sovereignty in choosing their own kind of government” (Guelzo 186) whereas Lincoln argued that popular sovereignty would subvert the principle of self-government as this would offer a choice for slavery. During his 1859 campaign speeches in the Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin Lincoln repeatedly asserted that the even though the Founders sought to restrain the spread of slavery in the territories Douglas and Kansas-Nebraska had wrecked that bargain by trying to extend slavery across the nation. While Douglas argued that popular sovereignty would enable territories to refuse slavery Lincoln held that slavery could never cease to exist unless and until it is prohibited by law. He also observed that in such territories and states where “slavery was not prohibited, it was established” and the Northerners were kept free due to the “explicit congressional legislation embodied in the Northwest Ordinance, banning the extension of slavery” rather than by the logic of popular sovereignty (Guelzo 230). Similarly, Lincoln regarded slavery as a total destruction of self-government. For him, the white man not only governs himself in self-government but also displays despotism by governing the blacks. Thus, Lincoln made it clear that popular sovereignty will only result in the negation of freedom to others and this is against the concept of liberty guaranteed by the declaration of independence. Lincoln showed his political religion that embodied the spirits of the Declaration of Independence though a number of moral arguments during and after his presidential campaign. He regarded slavery and human rights violation as a moral and humanitarian issue. Lincoln reminded his audience that the great accomplishment of the American republic was that “we proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant wiser; and all better and happier together” (Guelzo 187). He also observes that in America slavery is sanctioned by custom rather than legalized by law. For him, the leading principle of American republicanism is that “no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent” and so the current system of creating masters and slaves is a clear violation of this principle (Guelzo 191). During his address to the Peoria audience, Lincoln makes this clear that while the Declaration of independence declared that all men are created equal slavery has destroyed the American political system as it offer some citizens the right to enslave others in the name of sacred right of self-government. Lincoln concluded his Peoria audience by emphasizing that the declaration of independence offers equality for all men and for him universal freedom should characterize the theory of American government. It is essential to have a thorough understanding regarding how Lincoln has conceived the Declaration of Independence. For Guelzo, “Lincoln read the declaration as a document that transcended, not only the states’ rights so vital to the Democrats, but even national boundaries” and for him “the Declaration set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all” (195). For Lincoln the declaration consisted of principles and ideas that would bind the Union together under a single nationality. These principles guaranteed certain unalienable natural rights to every human being- “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" (Guelzo 224). Thus, Lincoln opposed the negation of these rights to the black man and for him dehumanizing the Negro as mere properties or slaves is a complete negation of the declaration of independence. Lincoln also believed that the true spirit of the declaration could be attained only through promoting the economic expansion and the economic betterment of the weaker race. Similarly, Lincoln also realized that it is significant to prevent any further extension of slavery in the Union so that he could aim at a gradual emancipation of the social evil from the American Union. Thus, Guelzo was right when the author purported that “in his search for a moral theory from which to denounce slavery extension, the declaration came to assume the role of a substitute scripture” which Lincoln described as a ‘civil religion’ in 1838 (Guelzo 196). Thus, all throughout his political propaganda and presidential campaigns Lincoln took special efforts to uphold the natural equality of all men announced by the declaration. He repeatedly reminded his audience that the “slaves are human beings; men, not property,” and therefore “that some of the things, at least, stated about men in the declaration of independence apply to them as well as to us’ (Guelzo 196). It can be observed that it was Lincoln’s strong faith in the Declaration of Independence that prompted him to uphold the universality of freedom and argue against the extension of slavery during his presidential campaign debates with Douglas. For instance, when the Dred Scott case in January of 1857 threatened the extension of slavery to the free states Lincoln asserted that “slavery was a violation of the most basic natural rights recognized by the American republic” and that “there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” regardless of the wishes of legislature” (Guelzo 220). While Douglas was in favor of Dred Scott case Lincoln blamed him of nationalizing slavery and dehumanizing the Negro. Lincoln never assumed a complete abolitionist point of view while dealing with slavery as he knew for certain that slavery could be abolished only through gradual prevention of extension and emancipation. Lincoln was completely aware that he was propagating in an overwhelmingly white society where the Blacks are forced to experience certain levels of inferiority in their civil or social rights. As a result he proposed “gradual emancipation and colonization rather than abolition as the ultimate answer” and argued that in spite of the “diminished social or civil rights, the natural rights established by Jefferson in the Declaration cannot be taken away” (Guelzo 196). After becoming the Republican presidential candidate quite accidentally, many argue that Lincoln followed a policy of containment rather than that of abolition or slave extension. There are many who regarded Lincoln as a covert abolitionist. Guelzo, in this respect, points out that “Lincoln might have thought of containment as a middle ground between abolition and slave extension, but few in the lower South and even fewer in South Carolina saw containment as anything but a covert strike at slavery and Lincoln as anything other than a covert abolitionist” (250). The fact that Lincoln never waged propaganda for a sound federal legislation to abolish slavery during his presidential campaign has prompted many to doubt his anti-slavery stand. On the contrary, Lincoln’s attacks on slavery were purely based on the principles of the Declaration of Independence. While Douglas never expressed any moral scruples on slavery as he regarded it as a policy matter only Lincoln strongly argued that the Negro does have a share in the Declaration of Independence. He went on to Douglas of “teaching people to think of negroes as ‘brutes” and “had got his entire party, almost without exception, to join in saying that the negro has no share in the Declaration” (Guelzo 231). Lincoln also reacted strongly against the Southern habit of buying men to make them work as slaves in the estates. As a result, the Southerners who believed that enslavement was the only way to keep low level labor opposed Lincoln’s ideas. Thus, all throughout his debates with his Democratic rival, Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln pointed out how the political heirs of Jefferson have moved away from the underlying ideas and principles of Jefferson’s declarations and these debates clearly demonstrate Lincoln’s anti-slavery Republicanism. Similarly, one can also find that Lincoln’s speeches and his political propaganda have been strongly rooted in civil and religious liberty. He held that only “’reverence for the laws’ and ‘self-disciplined imposition of reason’ could ensure the “establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty” (Guelzo 91). He exhorts every American never to violate the laws of the country and every citizen of the nation to move ahead “with malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right” (Guelzo 420). Due to his deep thrust on civil and religious liberty Lincoln is very often described as ‘the Christian president.’ Thus, Lincoln presupposes an American Union that safeguard equality and liberty to all its citizens irrespective of one’s color, religion or race. In his renowned house divided speech Lincoln made it clear that the American Union cannot endure long with a population that is half free and half slave just as a house divided against itself cannot stand. He was sure that the American union could become powerful only when slavery is abolished and both the North and South stand united. One can also find Lincoln’s immense faith in the Constitution in his political campaigns. He regards the Constitution as a uniting factor that that binds the Union and one finds him taking oaths to uphold the Constitution. For Lincoln, “the constitution was not just a set of rules of government but implied a moral order that was to be enforced throughout the entire Union” (Guelzo 2). As such, one finds Lincoln very often referring to the Constitution while addressing questions of slavery, liberty and human rights. Lincoln makes it clear that it is because he respects the constitution that he cannot do anything “with slavery as existing in the slave states at the time at the formation of the Union” and that he is forced to protect “the slaveholder in the rights granted him by the constitution and extending slavery over a territory” (Guelzo 189). Thus, one can find Lincoln acknowledging at many instances the rights of slave owners to retain their slaves and to have fugitive slaves returned as guaranteed by the Constitution. However, like the abolitionists, Lincoln never regarded the Constitution as a subversion of the Declaration. The abolitionists regarded the constitution as supporting slavery as it allows the recapture of slave runaways in the North under the federal law. On the contrary, Lincoln strongly believed that the constitution never contradicts the liberty offered by the declaration of Independence. As pointed out by Guelzo “Lincoln was convinced that any move to set the Constitution aside was the swiftest guarantee of the death of liberty for everyone” and he insisted that the Constitution “incorporated rather than contradicted the Declaration’s promises of liberty, and therefore deserved to be read as a document whose basic drift ineluctably faced against slavery” (Guelzo 197). He also believed that moving away from the constitution to promote the ideals of the Declaration of Independence would result in absolutism. He also pointed out that the Constitution offered certain amount of legal sanction to slavery in 1787 in an attempt to put an end to the national anarchy and misrule and that the Founders expected that these concessions on slavery would die out on its own. Thus, one can find Lincoln repudiating Douglas’s argument that the Constitution made no moral judgments regarding slavery or extension of slavery. Similarly, Lincoln was aware that the Constitution authorizes the president “to employ the means for carrying on a war; very well, freeing the South’s black slaves and arming them will constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion” (Guelzo 359). Lincoln thus believed that even waging a war to save the Union was quite constitutional. Therefore, it was no surprise that the Civil war was waged in an effort to keep the Union intact. Later, Abraham Lincoln realized that “the one single method for closing off any further life for slavery in the American republic was to amend the federal constitution, and put the abolition beyond both the courts and the states” (Guelzo 400). This realization culminated in the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery throughout the nation. As the first step of the abolition Lincoln formed Black regiments to fight in the war in 1863 and by the end of the war one in 10 of the Union army soldiers were blacks. In the same year signed the Emancipation Proclamation which marked the advent of the thirteenth amendment of the United States Constitution. The amendment was passed by the Congress on January 31, 1865, and was ratified by the states on December 6, 1865. To conclude, it can be stated that Lincoln’s political religion was strongly rooted in his firm faith in the Declaration of Independence, the constitution and the principles of quality and liberty guaranteed by both. Guelzo, in this respect, observes that even though Lincoln was a Whig in the past, he “had respect for the Constitution, loved the federal Union, and had a sacred regard for the rights of the States” (285). He strongly believed in an American Union where slavery no longer exists and the liberty of every individual is preserved. During the 1860 presidential election Lincoln asserted beyond any doubt that both the American Union and the constitution imbibe the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. For him, universal freedom that ensured equality characterizes the American Revolution. He exhorts every American not to destroy the Declaration of American Independence which marks the key of the American political system. He also exhorts every American to take a strong oath to ‘preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States’ to the best of their ability. Thus, it can be seen that Lincoln’s strong faith in the Declaration of independence and his powerful adherence to the Constitution mark his political religion and these two factors have been instrumental in the abolition of slavery and the formation of a powerful Union. Works Cited Guelzo, Allen C. Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President. Reprint ed: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003. Print. Read More