Abraham Lincoln: Tyrant! Unionist!

Hendrik Hertzberg has some fun with Rick Perry’s occasional suggestions* that Texas could secede from the United States of America. Doing so he quotes extensively from a message Abraham Lincoln sent to Congress on July 4th, 1861. It is, as you would imagine, good stuff. But that doesn’t mean it solves everything and nor is it the case that Lincoln is an anti-Godwin whom you need only quote to prevail in any argument. In any case, you might also think that there’s a difference between what was true in the Civil War and what must be true – legally or politically – now. Meanwhile, some of what Lincoln has to say is interesting to consider given Unionism’s struggle to make a good case for itself in Britain too…

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Chas Newkey-Burden

The triumph of Noel Edmonds

Over to Honest Abe:

It might seem, at first thought, to be of little difference whether the present movement at the South be called “secession’’ or “rebellion.’’ The movers, however, well understand the difference. At the beginning, they knew they could never raise their treason to any respectable magnitude, by any name which implies violation of law. They knew their people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and order, and as much pride in, and reverence for, the history, and government, of their common country, as any other civilized, and patriotic people. They knew they could make no advancement directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to the complete destruction of the Union….

This sophism derives much—perhaps the whole—of its currency, from the assumption, that there is some omnipotent, and sacred supremacy, pertaining to a State—to each State of our Federal Union. Our States have neither more, nor less power, than that reserved to them, in the Union, by the Constitution—no one of them ever having been a State out of the Union. The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence; and the new ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas. And even Texas, in its temporary independence, was never designated a State. The new ones only took the designation of States, on coming into the Union, while that name was first adopted for the old ones, in, and by, the Declaration of Independence. Therein the “United Colonies’’ were declared to be “Free and Independent States’’; but, even then, the object plainly was not to declare their independence of one another, or of the Union; but directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge, and their mutual action, before, at the time, and afterwards, abundantly show. The express plighting of faith, by each and all of the original thirteen, in the Articles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual, is most conclusive. Having never been States, either in substance, or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of “State rights,’’ asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about the “sovereignty’’ of the States; but the word, even, is not in the national Constitution; nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions. What is a “sovereignty,’’ in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it “A political community, without a political superior’’? Tested by this, no one of our States, except Texas, ever was a sovereignty. And even Texas gave up the character on coming into the Union; by which act, she acknowledged the Constitution of the United States, and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution, to be, for her, the supreme law of the land. The States have their status IN the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this, they can only do so against law, and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence, and their liberty. By conquest, or purchase, the Union gave each of them, whatever of independence, and liberty, it has. The Union is older than any of the States; and, in fact, it created them as States. Originally, some dependent colonies made the Union; and, in turn, the Union threw off their old dependence, for them, and made them States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a State constitution, independent of the Union. Of course, it is not forgotten that all the new States framed their constitutions, before they entered the Union; nevertheless, dependent upon, and preparatory to, coming into the Union.

This, you will agree, is all grand stuff. But if Texas gave up its sovereignty – as it did – then cannot it also reclaim it? The law may say one thing but politics is another game entirely. Now, clearly, this is not – for all Perry’s joshing – a matter of imminent import but nevertheless if it is the case that no party to the Union may leave it then one must ask what kind of coercive Union it is? Indeed, a union by definition must be made up of its constituent parts and even if one accepts that the states are, if you like, wards of the Union can they not leave it too?

Were, hypothetically, the people of Texas (or Vermont) to vote to leave the Union now would the United States government take up arms against them to quash their revolutionary spirit? Perhaps it would. Where then the much-ballyhooed principle of self-determination? Indeed, Lincoln’s definition of a state as a “political community” surely implies the ability to accept or reject its “political superior”. Or did the clocks stop in 1776?

Moving on and shifting across the Atlantic, Lincoln then offers an uncannily prescient, if accidental, defence of the United Kingdom in which he answers those English nationalists who would seek to evict Scotland from the House of Britain before turning his attention to the Scottish nationalist side of the dispute:

If all the States, save one, should assert the power to drive that one out of the Union, it is presumed the whole class of seceder politicians would at once deny the power, and denounce the act as the greatest outrage upon State rights. But suppose that precisely the same act, instead of being called “driving the one out,’’ should be called “the seceding of the others from that one,’’ it would be exactly what the seceders claim to do; unless, indeed, they make the point, that the one, because it is a minority, may rightfully do, what the others, because they are a majority, may not rightfully do. These politicians are subtle, and profound, on the rights of minorities. They are not partial to that power which made the Constitution, and speaks from the preamble, calling itself “We, the People.’’ … It may be affirmed, without extravagance, that the free institutions we enjoy, have developed the powers, and improved the condition, of our whole people, beyond any example in the world. Of this we now have a striking, and an impressive illustration. So large an army as the government has now on foot, was never before known, without a soldier in it, but who had taken his place there, of his own free choice. But more than this: there are many single Regiments whose members, one and another, possess full practical knowledge of all the arts, sciences, professions, and whatever else, whether useful or elegant, is known in the world; and there is scarcely one, from which there could not be selected, a President, a Cabinet, a Congress, and perhaps a Court, abundantly competent to administer the government itself. Nor do I say this is not true, also, in the army of our late friends, now adversaries, in this contest; but if it is, so much better the reason why the government, which has conferred such benefits on both them and us, should not be broken up. Whoever, in any section, proposes to abandon such a government, would do well to consider, in deference to what principle it is, that he does it—what better he is likely to get in its stead—whether the substitute will give, or be intended to give, so much of good to the people.

Emphasis added. So there you have it: Lincoln, tyrant and/or noble Unionist on both sides of the pond! Admittedly Lincoln merely asserts the benefits of Union while suggesting a bleaker future for those that choose to leave it – legally or not – but in as much as his appeal is to a shared history and community of interest his argument is relevent to our present condition too.

Anyway, make of this whimsy what you will.

*I doubt these will harm him too much in the Republican primary. A general election might be a different matter. Ditto some of Perry’s other weaknesses. But that’s a differet matter.

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The triumph of Noel Edmonds

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