Abraham Lincoln is an enigma. He has hovered in and around the lives of Americans, especially black Americans, for as long as I can remember: at home, in the local churches, social clubs and fraternal societies, during my elementary and high school years, he was the Great Emancipator. It was this image of him which prompted me, while a junior at Burke High School in Charleston, South Carolina, studying a unit on the Civil War in my history class, to enter the locally-sponsored oratorical contest of the Independent Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of the World, a contest opened to all students in black high schools throughout the region. This reference to black high schools is an acknowledgement that, back then, school segregation was the norm––it should be noted, however, that many schools today, north and south, are as racially segregated as the schools were in the 1950s and 1960s. Contestants had to write an essay on some application of the U.S. Constitution and the rights of citizens, and present it at the Elks meeting. My essay was “Abraham Lincoln and the Constitution,” and it won the third place award. It should be mentioned that just as the image of Lincoln among blacks was overwhelmingly positive, among whites it was the reverse: he was the enemy; whereas we spoke of The Civil War, whites, and the local press, called it The War between the States. My paper focused on the morality of slavery and on Lincoln’s attempt to create a new narrative to explain why it should be eliminated; the other major issue for Lincoln was that the dissolution of the American nation state was non-negotiable.
When Martin Luther King, Jr., the Civil Rights Movement, and the quest for racial integration dominated the national narrative, the image of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator continued to prevail. However, the opposition to social and school integration and the slow pace of overdue changes prompted many, especially the young, and those more influenced by the ideology of Malcolm X, to seek a more viable solution to racial oppression in the concept of Black Power. Thus when advocates of Black Power placed Lincoln under the microscope he was seen less as an emancipator and more as a tacit supporter of the racial status quo, engaging in a Faustian Pact more to save the Union than in a genuine belief in the rights of blacks as equals with whites in a society. Lincoln’s legacy among contemporary blacks is more likely to be an appreciative and tempered nod and a thank you; not the laudatory and the haloed image which accompanied the Lincoln of my childhood and youth.
I began to revisit Lincoln when the Steven Spielberg recent movie, Lincoln (2012), was being shot in Richmond, Virginia. Calls were sent out for extras, and the local press was full of interviews with those affiliated with the production. In fact, so much was being made of the film in the local press and news media that some noted the irony: citizens in the capitol of the defeated Confederacy were indeed treating the film crew with such fanfare that they may have forgotten that Union troops decimated Richmond, and Lincoln and Union forces destroyed the “Southern way of life.” I was interested in how Lincoln would be portrayed, but even more interested in how the issue of slavery and the role of blacks in the internecine struggle would be portrayed.
Those seeing the movie without having read any of Lincoln’s biographies and studies might be surprised by Lincoln’s bawdy humor or his wit. His strength of character, discipline, and determination are greatly underplayed, largely subsumed under his folksy, “old boy” demeanor. But this folksy demeanor hid a fierce determination to preserve the American Union, at any cost, by hook, crook, or as it was in this case, utilizing the tools of deception to win the day. Lincoln’s extension of presidential power, beginning in 1861, was crucial in rallying the Northern states in the defense of the Union, and his ploy to keep border states (e.g. Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri) from joining the Confederacy was a skillful strategy of using threats, and the actual deployment of federal troops, to ensure either their neutrality, or tacit support, of the Union.
Lincoln understood that the American Civil War was a new type of warfare, unlike the American Revolutionary War, or the War of 1812, in which the enemy was the “outsider.” In this war it was, in some cases, brother against brother and sister against sister. Even more problematic for Lincoln was how he positioned the role of blacks and the elimination of slavery as the two major themes justifying the need to defeat the Confederacy. But despite the lofty words of Lincoln that “this nation under God will have a new birth of freedom,” Lincoln knew that his battles would be fought both on the battlefield and in the U.S. Congress. He knew ultimately he had to buy or barter votes from the pro-slavery party, the Democratic Party, and also convince his own party, the Republican Party, of the rightness of the cause. There is much irony here: in the black contemporary mind-set, the Republican Party, then the anti-slavery party, is now viewed as the racist, anti-black party; the Democratic Party, then the pro-slavery party, is currently seen as the pro-black and anti-discrimination party.
The movie highlights the two themes which then galvanized Lincoln and the nation, and Lincoln saw these as intertwined: the need to free the slaves by the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, and the need to defeat the Confederacy. Almost three quarters of the movie depicted the arm twisting, bartering, pork barreling, and threats to support passage of the former. In the military campaign against the rebellious South, one is struck by Lincoln’s active involvement in each of the major military campaigns. He wanted to know the successes and failures of generals, and he worked closely with General Ulysses S. Grant to oversee some of the major troop movements. These two themes were being played out among a host of sub-themes in the Lincoln household: the mental state of Mary Todd Lincoln, who having lost one son in the war, was determined not to lose another; the second son who wanted to fight for the Union in order to fulfill his idea of being a man and fighting for a just cause. Another major sub-theme was Lincoln’s persistent ambivalence regarding the role and fate of blacks in a democratic United States. Lincoln was a man of his time: He simply did not believe that blacks and whites were equal in any manner, other than being equal before the law. For him, the passage of the 13th Amendment was a military necessity. It had to be passed in order to win the war, and the war had to be fought to subdue the South and maintain the United States as one nation, indivisible. As he often reminded his listeners, if he could save the nation without freeing the slaves, he would do so. This flaw in Lincoln’s greatness is played out in a quiet, often self-effacing manner so consistent with his often dry and distant personality.
Though Lincoln doubted the smooth integration, or coexistence of blacks and whites, he was far from the view expressed by many whites who opposed the 13th Amendment on the grounds that passing the amendment would only “Niggerate America.” But Lincoln infuriates, because he says all the right things, but the things are said in a hollow chamber where the sounds reverberate, but as he pronounces he warns the listener that though he is serious, he warns you not to take what he’s saying too seriously, or read too much in what he’s saying. For example, what are we to make of Lincoln’s Euclid Principle: “Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.” And “we first begin with equality, fairness and balance, and justice.” The movie has the crucial question of race directed to Thaddeus Stevens, but the answer in its candor and brutality could very well be Lincoln’s: “Do you believe in racial equality of all races, or do you simply believe in legal equality for all?” “Do you hold with equality in all things, or only in equality before the court of law?” With the risk of a failure to pass the 13th Amendment, Stevens with much pain says the latter. He knew that a statement declaring full racial equality for blacks would kill the amendment. Lincoln would have said the same in order to pass the amendment, but unlike Stevens, Lincoln really did not believe in full equality for blacks. Lincoln wants to move, one step at a time. In the movie at one point of exasperation Lincoln is clear about one thing: “The issue before us is freeing the slaves, not the enfranchisement of Negroes.” After all, Lincoln had a strong belief that the vote should be available only to “the intelligent and the qualified.” Stevens manages to salvage a part of his dignity from having to lie by taking the original copy of the newly passed 13th Amendment home, where he climbs in bed with his mistress, who is black, hands her the copy, and listens while she reads the amendment.
Finally, the drama of the war and the family anxieties are played out in the presence of the White House servant, who is black, and who proudly announces that he was never a slave. In contrast, Mary Todd Lincoln’s lady in waiting is a former slave. After the passage of the amendment, and the end of the war, Lincoln in a brief conversation with the latter tells her she has a right to expect from the nation what he, Lincoln, can expect. Then he asks her what she is, and should be to the nation. In a soft and unwavering voice, she simply states: “Freedom. What else must I be?!” That the Union in defeating the Confederacy would free the slaves did not mean, as it was for Lincoln, equality throughout the nation. Very early in the film, Lincoln approaches two black Union soldiers. One is so happy to be in the presence of the president, and to be a black soldier in a Union uniform, that, at that moment, nothing else seemed to matter. The other is also happy to greet the president, but he begins, to the annoyance of the other soldier, to note his grievances: black soldiers are paid three dollars less than white soldiers, must pay three dollars for their uniforms, and are unable to become officers over large army units which include white soldiers. Though initially reluctant to enlist black soldiers in their ranks, the Union found that black soldiers were fierce fighters, and fought for a cause above and beyond the cause fought by whites: they wanted to prove their worth as soldiers as well as fight to liberate blacks from enslavement. Their involvement was even more deeply felt inasmuch as many were former escaped slaves, and had family members still enslaved.
The movie gives us a glimpse into the psychology of the private Lincoln––his fears and anxieties, as well as his decisiveness. Lincoln was a slow plodder, but as his son once told him: “[Y]ou are a master of delayed tactics.” Throughout the movie that part of Lincoln is aptly illustrated. Spielberg did a superb job of meshing, yet juxtaposing, the narratives of the quiet, resolute, and lonely Lincoln; the furor over slavery, race, and the subtleties of class, and issues related to federalism, states’ rights, and centralized government. These issues are played in, and against, the backdrop of the question of the shaping of a new American culture and an emerging new and energetic American version of democracy. The movie is a reminder of both this country’s crassness and deceit and its potential greatness. It is also a reminder that, like Lincoln, one can, and should, do the right thing, because it is the right thing to do, even when doing so might be contrary to one’s personal beliefs and values.
May 23, 2013
