“… from these honored dead we take increased devotion … that this nation … shall have a new birth of freedom … and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
—Abraham Lincoln, from his Gettysburg Address (November 19, 1863)
I wonder what Lincoln would think of his country now, seven score and ten years after declaring that the vision of 1776 would not “perish from the earth.” Whatever else might be said about those post-Civil War years, they certainly haven’t led to a “new birth of freedom,” if by that phrase is meant anything more than the literal abolition of slavery as an institution.
Oh, to be sure, there has been immense progress on the civil rights front, albeit most of it has been in the last fifty years. But at the same time that minority groups of all stripes have gained legal rights not available (or even thought of) in 1863, it is also true that the quality of life for many of the less privileged in the country has remained very much of a struggle. Indeed, depending on which demographic study you look at, a good case can be made that the poor have an even tougher time making ends meet now than they did when the War on Poverty was proclaimed by Lyndon B. Johnson back in the mid-1960s. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine any president announcing or pursuing a similar goal in the American politics of today.
The great divide that Lincoln fought to overcome also still remains. The South is still the region of the country that harbors the most prejudice (albeit pockets of racial intolerance are present in almost every community in all regions of the country) and that clings most fervently to claims of “states’ rights.” That rallying cry was the cover for the secession by the Southern states that led to the Civil War and it still resonates in the attitudes that demand the right of an individual state to provide its citizens less of the things that the federal government would have provided to everyone. (Rarely, if ever, is the cry of “states’ rights” made to provide more than the federal government would require.)
The divide between conservatives and liberals is also far wider than Lincoln probably could have imagined it would be almost 150 years after his death. Today’s conservatives want to roll back the clock at least to 1932, if not to 1863. Today’s conservatives rail ever more stridently against “handouts” and “dependency” on government assistance. Liberals continue to push for greater government services and increased assistance for those in need, although today’s Democratic Party seems to be content to maintain the status quo in those areas, against the fierce efforts by conservatives to shrink budget deficits and make a dent in the national debt (at the expense of those same government services).
Would Lincoln be a Republican today? It’s hard to imagine that he would. If he were, he would probably be a Colin Powell Republican, which is somewhat akin to being the party guest that no one really wants at the party. In the 1860s, the newly formed Republican Party was forward-looking and essentially non-ideological, as was Lincoln himself. Lincoln’s political philosophy was guided by common sense, which, loosely translated means that he sought practical solutions for real problems and ignored theoretical complexities that didn’t correlate with the real world.
He saw the need for an active federal government, but rejected the view that the government could ever impose its separate will on the people it governed. In that sense, he was a true democrat (small “d” intended). The role of the federal government, in Lincoln’s view, was to recognize the will of the majority, but never to disregard the perspectives of those who disagreed, to honor personal rights above property rights, to impose legal restrictions on unfettered power and privilege, and to adhere to the rule of law in a constitutional system. Sound like a modern-day Republican?
I guess the answer to that question depends on which Republican Party we’re talking about. Today’s GOP is engaged in its own civil war, one that pits the old-line conservatives against the new breed of Tea Party reconstructionists, and at this point in its evolution, the Tea Party seems to be dominating, pulling those more inclined to a mainstream perspective farther to the right and thereby making the Party less appealing on a national level, even as it is more popular in specific geographic regions of the country.
The result is a form of divided government that would make the legislative battles Lincoln fought look like child’s play. The House of Representatives, consisting of members who are locally elected in geographic districts in each state, has become increasingly resistant to compromise and unwilling to engage in necessary legislative debate. And it’s hard to see that situation changing in the near term, as any Republican who even sounds like a moderate will quickly face a primary battle from the far right. The Senate is less likely to succumb to that kind of divisiveness, primarily because most states lack the Tea Party majority to elect those who might successfully challenge moderate incumbents in primary battles.
Still, the end result is a Congress that is almost, if not entirely, dysfunctional, which is certainly not something Lincoln would have foreseen were he to have projected his vision ahead 150 years. He sought to preserve the union to allow the grand experiment of American democracy to survive. While not a pure idealist, he certainly had a vision of a country that could develop into what its Constitution fostered.
The Gettysburg Address is still held in high esteem by most Americans. In writing it, Lincoln was attempting to restore the nation’s faith in the Constitution’s grand experiment that the Civil War was fought to preserve. Now, however, 150 years later, it’s a safe bet that the man who penned those poetic words would have a hard time recognizing what that grand experiment has become.