Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000394A
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00:26 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:28 This is the program bringing you news, views, 00:30 and information, and indeed insights 00:33 into religious liberty in the US 00:36 and around the world. 00:37 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty magazine. 00:41 And my guest, Gregory Hamilton, 00:43 president of the Northwest Religious Liberty Association, 00:46 and my sometimes, debating friend. 00:51 Welcome back to the program. Thank you. 00:54 You know, we're sitting in the studio 00:55 that's in Illinois, right? 00:57 You're a friendly debater, Lincoln, by the way. 00:59 It's all cool. Good. 01:01 At least we can shake afterwards. 01:04 But, you know, we're in Illinois now. 01:06 Isn't that the land of Lincoln? Yes, yes, I love it. 01:09 And I don't take it personally. 01:10 I was not named after Abraham Lincoln. 01:12 Well, you're from Australia, 01:14 so you'll probably appreciate it 01:16 as much as I do. 01:17 I love the land of Lincoln. Thank you. 01:19 It works in my favor though 'cause I was named Lincoln 01:22 after a spoon my parents had that was Lincoln brand. 01:25 But most Americans don't realize 01:27 there's the town of Lincoln played heavily 01:29 in the wars of the kings. 01:32 Lincoln Shaw, Lincoln Green. 01:35 But we'll talk about Abraham Lincoln. 01:38 Father Abraham, as he was known during the... 01:41 And it's timely 01:42 because we recently celebrated Presidents' Day. 01:44 Right. 01:45 And also, we're not too far removed 01:48 from Black History Month, 01:49 I've been dealing with it on Liberty magazine. 01:51 And he played a central role, of course, as president 01:54 with the Emancipation Proclamation 01:57 during the Civil War. 01:59 But what do you think of Abraham Lincoln is? 02:01 And don't apply it to me, 02:03 but Lincoln, what do you think of Lincoln? 02:05 Well, you know, I first think of Lincoln 02:08 in a statement 02:10 that it's a speech he gave at Edwardsville, Illinois 02:12 on September 13, 1858. 02:14 And he said, 02:15 "Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, 02:18 and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. 02:21 Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, 02:23 you have lost the genius of your own independence, 02:26 and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant 02:29 who rises among you." 02:31 Now this was sort of the beginning 02:34 of Abraham Lincoln's real rise of consciousness 02:38 regarding the plight of the African-American. 02:42 For many years, he had thought, 02:45 "Well, if they'd just establish a separate state or colony 02:49 in which all African-Americans could live 02:52 or they could be sent to a country in Africa, 02:56 okay, where they could all live peacefully 02:59 and be free there." 03:00 Or, you know, this and that, all kinds of theories came up, 03:04 but then when Dred Scott decision 03:05 was passed by the... 03:07 Or was ruled on by the Supreme Court 03:09 that declared that black people, 03:12 African-Americans essentially were not people. 03:15 They were not persons, they were slaves, 03:17 they were people of bondage, 03:19 and therefore the three-fifths clause 03:22 in the Constitution saying 03:25 that slaves represented three-fifths of a person 03:30 for purposes of apportionment, 03:32 so that states could have equal representation 03:36 at the federal legislature. 03:37 Are not quite equal, but given a white commensurate 03:41 with these extra persons. 03:42 Right, and so because the population in South 03:45 was not big, it was large farms, 03:48 large plantations, not a big population, 03:50 so they wanted equal representation 03:53 as much as possible. 03:54 And so when that decision came down 03:57 basically affirming the original intent 03:59 of the founders, which was accurate, 04:02 Lincoln was incensed about that because he said, 04:05 you know, "Aren't you awake to the times? 04:08 Don't you understand that the slavery system 04:11 is going to run amuck, 04:12 that it's going to create a total collapse 04:15 of our economic system in this country." 04:17 And so he was getting more agitated, 04:20 and was getting more and more oppressed to run 04:22 for president of the United States. 04:24 He had failed in running for Statehouse, 04:29 like three times, 04:30 even though he won several times... 04:31 Yeah, he had a checkered career. 04:33 He ran for Congress like four times, 04:35 and only got in once for two years, 04:37 and then was ousted after his famous speech 04:40 where he declared that the Mexican-American War 04:42 was a wicked war, 04:44 and that President James Polk was an evil president. 04:47 And so it got back home in the newspapers, 04:49 back in Springfield, Illinois, and they ousted him. 04:52 They said that's politically incorrect, 04:54 that's intolerable. 04:55 My take on Abraham Lincoln is that... 04:59 As you've said other times 05:01 on the framers of the Constitution, 05:03 of course much earlier than him, 05:04 that he was a product of his times, 05:06 and you can't remove him from that. 05:10 I think he reflected his times in many ways, 05:13 but he had a growing moral consciousness 05:16 that brought him in conflict with his time. 05:20 You know, I've read his speeches, 05:25 the debate with Douglas, wasn't it? 05:27 Yes. 05:29 In particular, and he made some horrendous statements 05:34 that would get him fired nowadays 05:36 about non-whites. 05:39 I mean, he said, "You and I, 05:41 neither one of us want to live next to such people." 05:43 Right? 05:45 And I don't think he was just saying 05:46 that for them, what I think is... 05:49 And yet he had great compassion for them because... 05:51 Well, he was a person of deep morality. 05:53 He got into a few fist fights 05:54 defending black people in Springfield. 05:57 I think as a level of human beings, 06:00 he saw a great injustice. 06:03 And more and more, 06:05 he was determined to stop it, right? 06:08 But there's an incredible telling episode, 06:11 not long before his assassination, 06:13 with a deputation of the black leadership came to his office, 06:18 and they were thankful. 06:19 They came to thank him. 06:21 And you know what he said to them? 06:23 He says, "Since you are the proximate 06:25 cause of this war, you should leave this country." 06:29 Yeah. No, I recall that, yes. 06:31 And yet at the same time, 06:34 you know, he risked the whole Union 06:39 in some ways over this issue. 06:40 If he had publicly endorsed slavery 06:43 as he became President, he could have defused it. 06:46 All though, it's really the other way around. 06:47 His mere election guaranteed the civil war 06:51 because he was already so much on record 06:53 as opposing the aims of the South 06:55 and so on. 06:56 Oh, yeah, the South were, was very mindful of that fact, 06:59 and they were very upset with his election. 07:02 And they thought this was the end of the world, 07:04 we have to do something about it, essentially. 07:06 So he was a man of great justice. 07:08 And yet the great irony is as the civil war 07:12 was going hard, as a strategic matter, 07:16 he freed the slaves in the South 07:17 not in the North. 07:19 That's true. 07:20 In fact, much of the Jim Crow laws 07:23 and the Black Codes 07:25 that followed Black Code laws first, 07:27 and then the Jim Crow laws later, 07:29 prior to the civil rights movement. 07:31 All of those laws were basically modeled 07:33 after laws for African-Americans 07:36 that existed in the North. 07:38 There's separate but equal type philosophy 07:41 that promoted segregation. 07:43 So my point after throwing the dust everywhere 07:47 is let's give him full and absolute credit, 07:51 in spite of being a man of his times, 07:54 he had the moxie to tackle this nettlesome issue 07:58 that even today haunts the United States. 08:00 But think about it. 08:02 He did it from a point of morality, 08:03 but as a citizen of his times 08:05 he was a mixed bag as you'd expect. 08:07 But he risked his reputation as President, 08:10 even re-election to fight 08:12 for the Emancipation Proclamation Act, 08:16 which he put forward in 1863, 08:18 a year before his re-election... 08:19 Well, his cabinet matter wasn't cut and dried. 08:22 No, of course not. 08:23 He had a very... 08:25 At times almost cynical attitude to all. 08:26 Of course. And had to be pushed. 08:28 Of course, in fact, he had a philosophy 08:30 that if the Emancipation Proclamation, 08:33 by putting it forward, 08:35 it gave the North a sense of moral superiority 08:37 over the South. 08:38 It was a means, a practical means of inspiring 08:40 the troops to, 08:42 "You have a cause to fight for." 08:43 In other words, don't lay down. 08:46 Don't just think you can have a few skirmishes. 08:48 In fact, he had a problem with some of the generals 08:50 including General McClellan, 08:53 who was the head of all the forces, 08:54 who thought, well, if we just went 08:55 a few skirmishes here and there, 08:57 we'll settle and the South become 08:58 a Southern United States 08:59 and North become a Northern United States. 09:01 He says, "No, we have to utterly annihilate 09:03 the South in order to restore the Union." 09:06 That was Lincoln's philosophy, and you can read this in James 09:09 MacPherson's book 09:11 his Pulitzer Prize winning book 09:12 called Tried by War: Lincoln as Commander in Chief. 09:16 It's a great book. 09:17 And I encourage you to read it 09:19 because what it demonstrates is that Lincoln, 09:22 from his teenage years on would go to the library 09:26 and he would borrow these books by on the Life of Napoleon, 09:30 Prussian generals, other generals. 09:32 I mean this guy was so well read 09:34 in terms of war strategies and battle strategies, 09:38 more so than even the commanders 09:39 who had gone to West Point. 09:41 Well, that was his... 09:42 You need to be careful that was his judgment. 09:44 And you and I have lived 09:45 through a few presidents to believe 09:46 that they had strategic knowledge. 09:48 I know, presidents who took over. 09:50 But Lincoln was... 09:51 The history books have been very kind to him 09:53 as though McClellan wasn't it 09:55 and others were just lazy commanders. 09:57 And they didn't do what Lincoln wanted. 10:00 They might have 10:01 had good military reason for that course. 10:02 Well, that's why he found in Grant and Sharman, 10:05 you know, Ulysses S. Grant 10:07 and William Tecumseh Sherman general... 10:09 A rural criminal and a boozer. 10:12 Now be careful, Ulysses S. Grant 10:14 is my relative now. 10:16 And historians are elevating Grant right now 10:21 to great prominence 10:23 because they didn't truly understand. 10:24 He was a man of few words. 10:26 He was very quiet like... 10:27 He was a bulldog. Yes, he was very persistent. 10:30 Yeah. Yes. 10:32 I've studied the civil war at great length, 10:34 but it is very interesting. 10:36 But like all history, 10:37 it takes on to one dimensionality, 10:39 if you're not careful. 10:41 I want to focus on Lincoln's Father, 10:43 Thomas Lincoln. 10:45 It's very interesting the way Lincoln grew up, 10:47 you know, Lincoln's father was a homesteader. 10:50 And he tried to homestead in West Virginia, 10:55 then Kentucky, and then Illinois. 10:57 And he failed in all places, 10:59 and his father was very much into Jeffersonian economics, 11:02 this idea that agrarianism was the answer to everything 11:06 that you could be self-supporting, 11:07 self-sufficient, and it didn't work. 11:09 He failed every time because that economic system, 11:13 even though it seemed good, in and of itself, 11:16 small farms never quite made it. 11:18 Big farms always made it but small farms didn't. 11:21 And so the homesteader economy, Lincoln said was ridiculous. 11:27 It was a failure. 11:28 He admired his hard scrabble, his rough knuckled father, 11:32 and his sweet mother, but he understood 11:35 that in order for a country to thrive, 11:38 you have to have a banking system 11:42 that corresponds with all facets of the economy 11:46 in which the economy was revved up 11:50 through commercial industry and industrialism, 11:54 that it couldn't just be the cotton farmer, 11:57 or the agrarian farmer, 11:59 or the plantation owner to sustain the economy. 12:01 What he saw was economy that would fail ultimately 12:06 with a Southern system that insisted on slavery 12:10 as the backbone of its economy, 12:13 which would drag the rest of the nation, 12:15 the North, being the industrial North, 12:17 would drag both down 12:20 into not only economic collapse, 12:22 but the ruinization of their nation. 12:24 In fact, even up to that day, Britain still had aspirations 12:28 even up to 1860, 12:31 they had aspirations of taking over North America. 12:34 Re-taking it, yeah. Yes. 12:36 They saw the weakness. They kept looking for weakness. 12:39 And they were ready to seize it back. 12:41 Lincoln knew all this. Lincoln studied this. 12:44 And so, when you look at the civil war, 12:46 there were all kinds of factors involved. 12:49 Well, and you can make a good argument 12:51 that it wasn't just the South agitation, 12:54 in particular slavery. 12:56 The US was getting a little large 12:59 for the old system to control. 13:01 It was becoming rambunctious, 13:03 and the move toward industrialization, 13:06 of course, was creating this divide 13:08 between the agrarian South and the North. 13:10 Something would have happened anyway. 13:11 If it hadn't been slavery, I believe, in fact, 13:15 I have 13:19 an aspirational view of history. 13:21 I think if Lincoln had lain it down 13:24 and not precipitate the civil war, 13:27 I think the US would have fragmented 13:32 into at least two sovereign areas, 13:35 and it could have done it peacefully. 13:36 Whether it would have fulfilled "Manifest Destiny", 13:40 that's another question. 13:41 Well, we forget that the civil war, 13:43 even the whole concept of the civil war 13:44 was unconstitutional. 13:46 That's what I think. You have to shift for the day. 13:48 Yeah, no, absolutely. 13:50 And so Lincoln was taking a huge risk. 13:53 He was called a law breaker, 13:54 a man who was against the Constitution, 13:56 a revolutionary that was evil, abominable. 14:01 I mean, this is the way the South painted him. 14:03 And in some respects, 14:04 they could legitimately say that. 14:06 Okay, in the sense that 14:08 that in terms of understanding the Constitution, 14:10 in terms of the interpretation of original intent, 14:14 that's why original intent in the long run, 14:17 you almost have to throw out the window at times, 14:19 not altogether. 14:21 It's dangerous 14:22 because they might have had some bad intension, 14:24 not necessarily written in the Constitution. 14:26 But we know the factions at that time, 14:28 and you don't want 14:29 to reach back into old factions. 14:31 And not only that 14:32 but if the South grows by eliminating slavery, 14:35 it causes the South and Southern cities to grow. 14:38 So I mean... 14:41 And with Southern cities growing, 14:43 what do you have? 14:44 You have more representation at the federal legislature, 14:49 and so he knew that the economic system 14:51 would sustain itself. 14:52 Yeah, absolutely. 14:54 I see you did it double take in noticing 14:55 that we're a little past our halfway time. 14:57 So let's take a break. 14:58 We'll be back shortly to continue this interesting 15:01 revisionist discussion. |
Revised 2018-07-30