Eric Foner on "Our Lincoln"

This is from The Nation:

"Abraham Lincoln has always provided a lens through which Americans examine themselves. He has been described as a consummate moralist and a shrewd political operator, a lifelong foe of slavery and an inveterate racist. Politicians from conservatives to communists, civil rights activists to segregationists, have claimed him as their own. With the approach of the bicentennial of his birth, the past few years have seen an outpouring of books on Lincoln of every size, shape and description. His psychology, marriage, law career, political practices, racial attitudes and every one of his major speeches have been subjected to minute examination."

"Lincoln is important to us not because of his melancholia or how he chose his cabinet but because of his role in the vast human drama of emancipation and what his life tells us about slavery's enduring legacy. The Nation, founded by veterans of the struggle for abolition three months after Lincoln's death, dedicated itself to completing the unfinished task of making the former slaves equal citizens. It soon abandoned this goal, but in the twentieth century again took up the banner of racial justice. Who is our Lincoln?"

"In the wake of the 2008 election and on the eve of an inaugural address with "a new birth of freedom," a phrase borrowed from the Gettysburg Address, as its theme, the Lincoln we should remember is the politician whose greatness lay in his capacity for growth. Much of that growth stemmed from his complex relationship with the radicals of his day, black and white abolitionists who fought against overwhelming odds to bring the moral issue of slavery to the forefront of national life."

full article.

Abe on Family Guy

New C-SPAN Book on Lincoln

From the website:

"To mark the February 2009 bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, C-SPAN's CEO Brian Lamb and co-president Susan Swain have opened the network's archives to create Abraham Lincoln. This book is an effort to chronicle the life and legacy of America's 16th president through the eyes of 56 of the country's leading Lincoln historians, journalists, and writers."

"Fascinating, little-known anecdotes about the president are brought to light in richly detailed essays drawn from C-SPAN interviews. Extras include 16 pages of color photos and four maps that detail where Abraham Lincoln lived, the location of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln's Inaugural journey to Washington and the path his funeral train took when returning him to Springfield. A timeline of Abraham Lincoln's life, brief biographies of the 56 contributing authors, and Lincoln's most famous speeches are also included."

website.

The Myth of Lincoln's "Team of Rivals"

Matthew Pinsker wrote this for the LA Times:

"People love Doris Kearns Goodwin's book on the Lincoln presidency, "Team of Rivals." More important, for this moment in American history, Barack Obama loves it. The book is certainly fun to read, but its claim that Abraham Lincoln revealed his "political genius" through the management of his wartime Cabinet deserves a harder look, especially now that it seems to be offering a template for the new administration."

""Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet," is the way Obama has summarized Goodwin's thesis, adding, "Whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was how can we get this country through this time of crisis.""

"That's true enough, but the problem is, it didn't work that well for Lincoln. There were painful trade-offs with the "team of rivals" approach that are never fully addressed in the book, or by others that offer happy-sounding descriptions of the Lincoln presidency."

"Lincoln's decision to embrace former rivals, for instance, inevitably meant ignoring old friends -- a development they took badly. "We made Abe and, by God, we can unmake him," complained Chicago Tribune Managing Editor Joseph Medill in 1861. Especially during 1861 and 1862, the first two years of Lincoln's initially troubled administration, friends growled over his ingratitude as former rivals continued to play out their old political feuds."

Full article.

Lerone Bennett Is Still Preaching His Gospel of Lincoln Hatred

Lerone Bennett recently gave a lecture on Abraham Lincoln's "true" legacy as a racist, hate filled demon that wished to make America a white nation. Thankfully the crowd that gathered to hear this disgusting brand of pseudo-history numbered under fifty.

The Ithaca Journal reported:

"“He was not a great emancipator, he was not a small emancipator, he was not even a regular-sized emancipator,” Bennett said, drawing laughs."

Bennett a raised the usual half-baked arguments such as this: "“The Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves; the 13th Amendment to the Constitution freed the slaves. If you meet a historian in Ithaca who says the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves, call the police — because you are either dealing with a charlatan or an innocent who needs to be protected from himself.”"

Yes, Mr. Bennett, the Emancipation Proclamation itself did not free any slaves. And yes it was the 13th Amendment that officially freed all the Nation's slaves. However, the proclamation gave authority to the Union Army to free any slave that they came across throughout the South. With the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln made emancipation the policy of the executive branch and the US military. After January 1, 1863 all Union Armies were now made into a tool of emancipation. Bennett, in his book Forced Into Glory, made a habit ignoring this fact because it did not fit the story he was trying to tell.

Bennett also ignored that many former slaves, as historian Allen Guelzo has argued, dated their freedom to the day that they heard about the proclamation. Lincoln didn't physically free the slaves, but rather most slaves freed themselves. Lincoln's proclamation, however, made sure that those who ran away to Union armies were not returned to their masters.

Bennett also made the claim that Lincoln "opposed equal rights for blacks and Latinos, and supported the deportation of all blacks living in the states. As a lawyer in Illinois, Lincoln sent runaway slaves back to slavery, he said."

Where do I start? The issue of Latino rights in 1863 was not a pressing issue because outside of Texas, California, and the lands of the Mexican Cession there were not that many Latinos living in the United States.

Lincoln was opposed to equal rights for blacks as was just about everyone else in America. Here is where I will make a concession to Bennett. Lincoln did hold some racist views, which was normal for the era. He did not think that blacks were equal to whites, but he also didn't think that they should be slaves. Lincoln also favored giving blacks the right to vote, which is what some historians believe was a deciding factor in his murder at the hands of John Wilkes Booth.

Bennett was partially correct when he argued that Lincoln wanted to deport all African Americans to Latin America or Africa. Lincoln did favor colonization for a brief time because he believed that blacks and whites would not be able to live peacefully with each other. He quickly abandoned this scheme when he was met by fierce resistance on the part of many black leaders including Frederick Douglass. Lincoln's colonization scheme was just one of many ideas that he proposed to solve the slavery problem.

I will make another concession to Bennett. Lincoln, as an Illinois lawyer, did return a slave to slavery. He hated the institution of slavery, which is generally accepted among historians, but Lincoln was also a firm believer in the supremacy of the law over personal beliefs. This was an unfortunate episode in Lincoln's law career, but it should in no way be interpreted as anything other than a dumb choice on the part of Lincoln.

Over the years, Bennett has garnered some praise for his stance on Lincoln's legacy, but those who offer this praise are usually other Lincoln hating, pseudo-historians. Bennett should not be and is not taken seriously by professional historians. He has revealed himself to be exactly what he accuses Lincoln of being: a hateful, bigoted, racist, shameful, disgusting man.

For those who want to read a much better analysis of Lincoln the emancipator, I recommend reading Allen Guelzo's Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Guelzo's book also contains a devastating critique of Bennett's 600 plus page screed, Forced into Glory.

The Lincoln Assassination Is Coming To HBO

HBO is currently developing a mini-series on the Lincoln assassination, which will be based on James L. Swanson's Manhunt. This could be interesting because HBO has made some really good historical mini-series such as Band of Brothers and John Adams. Broadcasting & Cable reported:

"The project reunites the network with the creative forces behind two of its former critical hit series—Simon created The Wire and Fontana created Oz—as well as the two writers themselves. Simon and Fontana have not collaborated since Fontana turned Simon's book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets into the cop drama Homicide for NBC."

" The would-be mini comes at a time when HBO has continued to find critical and viewership success with miniseries while struggling to mount new, enduring series hits. HBO posted a less-than-spectacular open for its most recent series debut, the heavily marketed vampire drama True Blood, which attracted 1.4 million viewers to its Sept. 7 premiere. It was an anemic debut compared to recent HBO drama premieres including Big Love (4.6 million), Rome (3.8 million) and the failed John From Cincinnati (3.4 million)."

'It also comes on the heels of another HBO miniseries in the American history genre, John Adams, which enjoyed critical and viewership success, and piqued Fontana's attention."

"A history buff, Fontana's historical métier is the American Revolution and the Lincoln assassination. Fontana, in fact, grafted his Lincoln obsession onto one of his Homicide characters. Simon also possesses more than a passing interest in the Lincoln assassination."

Full article.

The last paragraph of this article is interesting. It states:

"For Simon, Lincoln's murder took on new relevancy with the Bush administration's post-9/11 policies. “People have been fascinated by the Lincoln assassination since it happened,” he says. “It's a pivotal moment in American history. The stakes were extremely high for the nation as a whole. The characters are grandly dramatic. So there would be reasons enough to be interested even if it were all an anachronism. But I don't think it is an anachronism. If you look at everything from Guantanamo to the Patriot Act to the debate over military tribunals versus civil prosecution, there's a lot of analogous stuff.”"

What?! So, they are going to use the Lincoln assassination to make a statement about the Bush Administration? Really? As someone who is training to be a historian this really angers me. One historical era or event can not be used to describe another, much later era. To compare the aftermath of the Civil War to the War on Terror is just foolish and bad historical thinking. I am guessing that the film makers want to make the argument that the Lincoln assassination led to a period of paranoia and the abuse of power on the part of the federal government. Civil liberties were trampled upon and a "nation" (the Confederacy) was occupied by an invading army which was to be challenged by heroic insurgents in bed sheets and hoods. This is stupid. I do want to see a mini-series about the Lincoln assassination get made, but I hope that the film makers do not try to play petty, partisan politics with the subject matter.

For anyone interested: About ten years ago TNT made a movie on the Lincoln assassination entitled The Day Lincoln Was Shot. The movie was based on Jim Bishop's book also titled The Day Lincoln Was Shot. The movie was OK, but pales in comparison to other Ted Turner Civil War films.

Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney, Brief Review

James F. Simon's Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney is an attempt to tackle two brilliant and worthy adversaries at the same time; Abraham Lincoln and Roger Taney. Simon centered the book around the three key issues of slavery, secession, and the President's war powers (this is actually the book's subtitle). The section devoted to the issue of slavery was interesting, but it offered nothing new to the existing historiography. Now, the section dealing with secession was, well, lacking. What was it lacking? Too much to list here. The most interesting section was devoted to the President's war powers and more specific the suspension of habeas corpus. Simon came down on Taney's side in this debate and held nothing back when criticizing Lincoln's war measures.

Overall, this book was an OK read, but did not add much to Lincoln studies. However, it does have some value. Books covering Taney's career and decisions (other than the Dred Scott decision) just are not being written. Simon has given readers a fuller view of Taney's life and work. His view of Taney is more sympathetic than most others that have been offered, but it is still more balanced than other works.

Barney Fife's Take on the Emancipation Proclamation

Once again I have that great blog Civil War Memory to thank for yet another entertaining and interesting video.

Lincoln's Legacy

Here's yet another book on Abraham Lincoln that I'm looking forward to reading. Lincoln's Legacy, edited by the late Philip Shaw Paluden, is a collection of essays by prominent historians in which they debate the 16th President's legacy. Here are some excepts from Lincoln scholar Frank J. Williams's review of the book:

"Following his untimely death on August 1, 2007, Phillip Shaw Paludan left his own legacy as editor in this slim but thought-provoking volume that contains four new essays depicting major problems confronted by the sixteenth president. Along with the editor, three other distinguished Lincoln scholars – William Lee Miller, Mark E. Neely, Jr., and Mark Summers – portray Abraham Lincoln and how he contended with questions of politics, law, constitutionalism, patronage, and democracy. They represent an outstanding assessment of Lincoln’s virtues as president."

"The essays examine the conflicted democratic leader ahead of those being led. But isn’t a democratic leader also supposed to be a follower – obeying the will of the people? We desire strong leaders and justly fear them. We desire wide-spread democracy and justly worry about the consequences. After all, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, yet is credited with preserving the Constitution."

"This oxymoron is clearly seen in Lincoln’s 1838 Lyceum speech in which the future president condemned mob violence and racial lynching but also considered the tension between a constitutional order and ambitious individuals who seek to transcend its restrictions. Such challenges, Lincoln wrote, aspire to greatness, and seem to come “from the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle.” How does a democratic order contain such ambition? And how can such ambition find satisfaction in democratic statesmanship?"

"These essays demonstrate that this is not an incidental tension in democratic political life but may be the essential one, defining democracy’s risk and responsibilities. Powerful political leadership almost always contains within itself a challenge to democracy. It asserts prerogatives. It takes liberties. It even emerges most clearly at times when the democratic order itself is under threat as with Abraham Lincoln, or Winston Churchill, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt."

Full review.

Guelzo on Lincoln Haters

In the latest issue of the Claremont Review of Books, historian Allen Guelzo takes on Lincoln haters in his review of Thomas L. Krannawitter's Vindicating Lincoln. Guelzo wrote:

"Pick any major figure in American conservative thought since 1945, and you will generally find the attitude toward Abraham Lincoln to be surprisingly ambivalent. Take Willmoore Kendall, one of the sainted names of modern conservatism, as an example: according to Kendall, Lincoln used the Declaration of Independence to demolish the Constitution in the name of promoting equality. "What Lincoln did...was to falsify the facts of history," he argued, "and to do so in a way that precisely confuses our self-understanding as a people." Or take Gottfried Dietze, a libertarian, who saw Lincoln's appeal to the Declaration as a pretense which allowed him to demote the Constitution to a mere piece of framery, so that Lincoln would be free to pursue dictatorial glory as president. Lincoln, he said, was "a democratic Machiavellian whose latent desire to achieve immortality broke forth at the first opportunity offered by...the Civil War." Or if not lusting after glory exactly, allows Dietze, Lincoln used the pursuit of equality as an excuse for granting himself "unprecedented and virtually dictatorial powers as president," and tore down the restraints of the Constitution so that he could satisfy a kind of political Oedipus complex."

"A good deal of this ambivalence stems from the long history of agrarian resistance to modern industrial capitalism, a resistance whose apostles have at various times included Thomas Jefferson, John Taylor of Caroline, John C. Calhoun, William Jennings Bryan, Allan Tate, John Crowe Ransom, and now Wendell Berry. From their pens has arisen the mythopoetic chant of the land, the land, and the land, as though loam and offal possessed moral qualities. Given that Lincoln got off the land as soon as he turned 21, became a lawyer (those menacing enforcers of contracts and mortgages), and made war upon a Confederacy whose principal product was the most valuable agricultural commodity in the 19th century—one can understand why anyone with visions of rural piety floating through his head probably has little reason to admire Lincoln."

"A more violent reason for this dislike grows out of the near-sighted conclusion that because the Confederacy justified its secession from the federal system on the ground of state rights, Lincoln must necessarily have represented an agent of centralized "big government," and therefore a camel's nose that every good conservative needs to whack the moment it pokes through the political tent flaps. And it is true that, under Lincoln's administration, the volume of federal spending and congressional micro-management increased in a way that would not be seen again until World War I. But this is an accusation which rarely takes into account the utterly unprecedented demands of a four-year civil war, or the fact that, once the war ended in 1865, swollen federal bureaucracy quickly shrank back to its pre-1861 dimensions. (The military force used to administer Reconstruction, often offered as an additional count against the over-mighty federal government in Lincoln's era, never amounted to more than 17,000 men.) Southerners might have claimed to be conservative for trying to conserve state rights (although Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy, thought that the Confederate Constitution was an innovation, "the first, in the history of the world," and a step beyond the "sandy foundation" of the old Constitution because it incorporated the "great, philosophical, and moral truth" of black racial inferiority.) But Lincoln was also struggling to be a conservative by preserving the Union from self-destruction; and that, in turn, was key to preserving popular government in the face of what had become a profoundly reactionary political age. What was being tested by "this great civil war" was not merely the constitutional technicalities of federalism, but the entire project of "any nation so conceived and so dedicated." Was democracy doomed to incessant rounds of self-destruction? Were people really born to be ridden by those born booted and spurred? All the evidence from 1804 onwards said yes; only the American democracy said no, and now this democracy was teetering on the brink, too."

"But underlying both of these criticisms of Lincoln is a more inexplicable factor—namely, the failure of conservatives, even after half a century, to reconcile themselves to the civil rights movement. Lincoln may have been dead for four-score-and-seven years when Brown v. Board of Education (1954) inaugurated the "second Reconstruction," but many conservatives who were dubious about the second Reconstruction's use of federal power—especially federal judicial power—as the principal lever for bringing down Jim Crow could hardly help suspecting that the template for federal intervention in the 1950s had been copied from Lincoln's in the "first Reconstruction." I think this view of the relationship between the "first" and "second" Reconstructions pays insufficient attention to the distinctive ways in which the latter was shaped by Progressivism, while the former was a campaign to introduce free-market and free-labor capitalism into a society built around racial caste. And it is true that there were many things wrong with the civil rights movement—its dismissal of the rule of law as a white man's invention, the domino effect of racial egalitarianism toward egalitarian absurdity, the invention of victimhood and identity politics. But it was right about one very big thing, and that was the vicious and deliberate way in which white Southerners trampled the sacredness of American citizenship into the mud, while whites everywhere else turned a conveniently blind eye. Civis romanus est brought down Gaius Verres; civis americanus est ought to have protected Emmett Till, James Meredith, and Medgar Evers, but it didn't. Any conservative who wonders why blacks' perceived self-interest veers so often in the direction of power rather than law has only to consult the many ways in which, for a century after the Civil War, the "rule of law" was used as an excuse for the routine subornation of natural rights and civil justice."

Full review.

Gettysburg Address to be Returned to Public Display

This was reported by the AP on June 25:

"Illinois' original manuscript of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address will be back on display next month at the Civil War president's library in Springfield."

"The copy will be displayed on July 1, one year after it was removed from public viewing. It will remain on view until August 20."

"The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum rotates its collection of Lincoln artifacts so several are on display while others are under lock and key."

"Library officials say historical materials such as the Gettysburg Address stay in better condition if they are allowed to rest in a controlled environment rather than remain on constant display."

"There are five original handwritten copies of the Gettysburg Address. Illinois obtained a copy in 1943 through the contribution of pennies by children, plus a donation by Marshall Field III."

More on Lincoln Dispellers: The Gay Lincoln

The following excerpts are from a debate about C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln that was publish in The Claremont Review of Books in 2005.

Allen C. Guelzo wrote:

"When C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln was published (by Free Press last December posthumously, since Tripp died of AIDS in 2003), anyone with a good set of cultural ears might have heard a faint moan coming from the special historical workshop housing the students, scholars, and biographers of Abraham Lincoln. It was not the conspiratorial moan Tripp had predicted, as if he had liberated some great secret which was striding across the land, committing truth. It was more like the moan of the weary, who have seen this kind of thing before, time and again. The moan is not even about Tripp or his book, so much as it is about how much time they'll have to waste, fielding questions from those, whether lovers or haters of Abraham Lincoln, who believe this is the one simple explanation of everything about him. As Edward Steers says (in the first of the thumbnail critiques of Tripp's book which follow), this kind of noisy announcement of the one, true key to the "secret" of Abraham Lincoln—succeeding Lincoln-and-Marfan's-Syndrome, Lincoln-and-Freemasonry, Lincoln-and-Swedenborgianism—has happened before, and will doubtless happen again as long as someone has an agenda he feels the need to hitch to Abraham Lincoln."

"The argument of the book is plain enough to capture in a few sentences. Recollections by and of the young Lincoln point to homoerotic attractions and attractiveness, leading him to beds shared with several young men, including (in later years) one of the officers charged with protecting his life. Lincoln's marriage to Mary Todd was a misery, not because Mary was a "hellcat," but because Lincoln was violating his own homosexual nature. Lincoln's marvelous resiliency, humility, and charity were lessons he learned from experiencing the intolerance of a homophobic culture. But the experience exacted a toll, a toll paid in guilt and a sense of alienation from others, both of which show up in his reticence about his private life and in his religious ideas. Lincoln was not only "predominantly homosexual," but his homosexuality is (in the words of Jean Baker, who wrote an afterword to The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln) the key to "his independence and his ability to take anti-Establishment positions like the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation.""

"If this is not preposterous, then the word should be declared extinct. The whole proposition ought to collapse under the weight of one question: if Lincoln was a homosexual, why haven't we heard of this before? Surely Lincoln was so public a figure, and homosexuality so leprous an accusation in Victorian America, that not even P.T. Barnum, the Cardiff Giant, and the Feejee Mermaid could have distracted attention from a president who committed sodomy with the captain of his guard."...

Edward Steers, Jr. wrote:

"Abraham Lincoln has been a favorite subject from every side of history. By turns, he has been both hero and villain. As hero, Lincoln has been sanctified as the Savior of the Union, the Great Emancipator, the Man of the People. And in the role of villain (especially for neo-Confederates who despise him for preserving the Union), he has been dismissed as illegitimate by birth, boorish in behavior, a despot who savaged the Constitution while waging a brutal war of destruction, a closet racist who was forced into issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. Americans of almost every persuasion have wanted to pin their tail to Abraham Lincoln's donkey."

"So instead of offering something entirely unique, C.A. Tripp has really only joined a long line of tail-pinners, the only novelty being that his argument centers on Lincoln's recorded behavior with other men—behavior that today might raise suspicions of homosexuality, or bisexuality—that included sleeping with various men in the same bed, showing a special affection for certain "young" men, and ending his letters to certain men with "yours forever.""...

Michael Burlingame wrote:

"Insofar as Tripp's book helps disabuse the reading public of the "legend of Lincoln's happy marriage," it serves a valuable function. But insofar as it leads people to think that Lincoln was gay it does a disservice to history, for the evidence adduced fails to support the argument. The cases of Joshua Speed and David Derickson, which Tripp dwells on at greatest length and that provide the strongest evidence for his thesis that Lincoln was "primarily homosexual," are far from conclusive. Lincoln's letters to Speed in the 1840s, which Tripp cites as strong evidence, in fact lack a homoerotic tone. Lincoln's use of "yours forever" in letters to Speed, a phrase that Tripp finds significant, also appears in his letters to many others. In 1864, Lincoln told Titian J. Coffey that "I slept with Joshua [Speed] for four years." If Lincoln and Speed were (to use 19th-century parlance) sodomites, it seems unlikely that Lincoln would have spoken so openly to Coffey. He also acknowledged that he had slept with Charles Maltby over a long period, telling a journalist in 1863: "I know Maltby, for I slept with him six months.""...

"If anything, all the real evidence we have points in precisely the opposite direction. Lincoln's law partner William Herndon alleged that from 1837 to 1842, Lincoln and Joshua Speed, "a lady's man," were "quite familiar—to go no further[—]with the women." On at least one occasion Lincoln shared Speed's taste in fancy women—in fact, the very same woman. Speed recollected that around 1839 or 1840, he "was keeping a pretty woman" in Springfield, and Lincoln, "desirous to have a little," asked his bunkmate, "do you know where I can get some." Speed replied, "Yes I do, & if you will wait a moment or so I'll send you to the place with a note. You cant get it without a note or by my appearance." If Speed was homosexual and impotent with women, as Tripp argues, why did he keep this "pretty woman" in Springfield? If Lincoln was having sex with Speed, why would he ask him where he could "get some"?"...

Full debate.

Another Lincoln Dispeller

In a previous post I made an effort to dispel some of the Lincoln dispellers, but I have just come across this video featuring Thomas DiLorenzo. DiLorenzo is the author of The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked and is one of the major Lincoln dispellers. He makes repeated references to the "Church of Lincoln" and claims that Lincoln scholars have deified Lincoln and don't criticize him at all. This is just plain wrong and it shows that DiLorenzo has little knowledge of the historiography of Lincoln. He is nothing more than a pseudo-historian who writes history for his own present, political purposes.

James McPherson on Lincoln's Invention of War Powers

I came across this James McPherson lecture in which he argues that Abraham Lincoln's invention and use of Presidential war powers.

Dispelling the Dispellers of Lincoln Myths

Since historians, as well as other writers, started writing about Abraham Lincoln, there have been those who have worked hard to give us a well-rounded image of the 16th president. Lincoln is the most written about figure in American history and hundreds of books about him are published each year. Our historical knowledge of Lincoln is pretty great and there are numerous scholarly and popular works examining various aspects of his life, political career, presidency, and political and racial views.

Over the past few years various writers, most of them hold no professional historical credentials, have set out to take on the Lincoln myths, which they believe are being passed off as historical fact. These 'myths' have already been researched and written about in great detail by real historians and these writers are giving the American reading public pseudohistorical trash. The historical equivalent of a John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Tom Clancy or any other modern day dime novelists who are trying to pass as serious writers.

These dispellers of Lincoln myths seem to focus on a few key aspects of Lincoln's life or political career. And they get everything horribly wrong.

Here are some of the key issues:

1. Lincoln was a racist. The most famous, or infamous, writer to argue this is Lerone Bennett. In 1968, Bennett published an article in Jet that argued that Lincoln was a white supremacist. A few years ago he published a 600 plus page screed, entitled Forced into Glory, detailing Lincoln's racism. This point about Lincoln being a racist is partially true. Let me emphasize the word partially. Did Lincoln hold some believes that were racist? Of course he did! After all, he was the product of 19th Century America, which was a fairly racist society. The 'dispellers' usually point to a few phrases from the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 or certain lines from letters to prove their point. However, focusing on a few phrases in the millions of words that Lincoln uttered or wrote throughout his political career proves nothing beyond the fact that 'dispellers' have way too much time on their hands. Lincoln did hold some racist views, but overall Lincoln was more progressive in his racial views than most of his contemporaries. He was fervently anti-slavery, which is evidenced in the fact that he joined the an anti-slavery party, the Republican Party, and then became their presidential candidate running on an antislavery platform.

2. Lincoln did not want to end slavery, but wanted only to preserve the Union. This is also partially true. In the first year or so of the Civil War, Lincoln's paramount goal was to preserve the Union. Yes he was anti-slavery, but how could he have abolished slavery without restoring the Union first? To prove that he was solely concerned with preserving the Union, 'dispellers' usually point to the famous letter Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley in response to Greeley's call for immediate emancipation. The August 1862 letter stated: "I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views." What these people fail to realize, or just plain ignore, is that this letter was written after Lincoln decided to follow a course of emancipation. Lincoln made this decision in mid-summer 1862, at least a month before the letter to Greeley was written, but was persuaded to wait until after a smashing Union victory on the field of battle to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

3. Lincoln's proclamation did not free any slaves. Technically, this is true. The Emancipation Proclamation only pertained to the areas of the Confederacy that were not under union control and still in a state of rebellion. Lincoln did not have the power to free the slaves, but he had the authority to do so. He used his authority to make Emancipation a war goal and a tool to wage his war. The Emancipation Proclamation essentially made the Union Army a tool of emancipation. Where ever the army went, that area's slaves would be freed. 'Dispellers' also make the point that Lincoln's proclamation did not touch slavery in the slave states, or border states, that remained in the Union. In regards to the border states, Lincoln had to constantly walk a tight rope. In order to win the war Lincoln had to keep these states in the Union and interfering with slavery within these states may have pushed them to join the Confederacy. Well, this is what Lincoln feared. This is not to say that Lincoln did not try to abolish slavery within the border states. He came up with a plan of gradual emancipation that he wanted to implement in those states, which he tested in Delaware, but the plan was not well received.

4. Lincoln was gay. This is a fairly new claim. It has been tossed about by that intellectual fraud Gore Vidal and most recently by the late C.A. Tripp. They call attention to the fact that Lincoln shared beds with other men. They also fail to place this fact, and others, within the context of the time period. In the west, Illinois was considered the west at the time, people did have many possessions. Not everyone owned a bed. So, it was fairly common for men to sleep in the same bed with other men. If this makes Lincoln gay than almost the entire American male population at the time was also gay. They also point to certain phrases in letters that Lincoln wrote. They also examine some of the relationships Lincoln had with other men and his supposed loveless marriage to Mary Todd. There is just no evidence to support these claims and real historians dismiss them all.

I feel this video clip is a good example of some of the arguments that 'dispellers' like to make.

Abraham Lincoln and Material Culture

In a recent essay, published in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Erika Nunamaker examined Abraham Lincoln's "egalitarian refinement." "Egalitarian refinement," according to historian Joyce Appleby, can be described as "an oxymoron that nicely captured the split personality of American society, with its yearning for the manners of the better sort and appreciation of the vernacular culture of ordinary folk." Nunamaker wrote that Lincoln, in 1837 when he was just starting his career as a lawyer, purchased a expensive horsehair couch. He defied all cultural customs of the antebellum gentry by reclining and spreading out on the couch while reading. Lincoln's to purchase such a couch shows his desire to be thought of as a gentleman, but his improper use of the couch illustrates "his refusal, whether conscious or unconscious, to resort to affecting behaviors or aping manners that did not come naturally to him."

Nunamaker's propose in writing this essay was to call attention to a wealth of primary sources that have been largely ignored by historians and Lincoln scholars. Studies in historical material culture reveals what peopled desired to own and what objects they bought. Examining Lincoln's furniture, as Nunamaker has done, shows how Lincoln was influenced by common cultural assumptions and how he defied them. There are tens of thousands of books on Lincoln, but the examination of the objects he bought demonstrates that there is still much we can learn about this man.

Lincoln and Douglas...the standard for political debates

A little over a week ago Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton participated in the twentieth presidential debate. The Republicans have also held countless debates over the past year. With John McCain as the Republican nominee and the Democrats thinned out to just two contenders the general election will soon begin bringing the promise of yet more debates. One would think that with the sheer number of debates that have taken place, then the American people must be the most informed electorate in all the world. This presumption is dead wrong. These debates that we have had to endure were not true debates and pale in comparison to a series of seven debates between the two candidates who were campaigning to be a senator from Illinois in 1858. These two men, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, participated in seven debates with each lasting for about three hours. At the heart of these debates was the issue of slavery and the fate of the Republic. These debates were racially charged and were not short on sexual innuendos. Here is an interesting article on the debates written by historian Allen Guelzo.

Allen Guelzo on the Daily Show

Allen Guelzo, one of my favorite historians, was on the Daily Show recently. Guelzo and host Jon Stewart discussed his new book Lincoln and Douglas.