THE AGE OF LINCOLN AND THE ART OF AMERICAN POWER, 1848–1876
Also by William Nester
The Revolutionary Years, 1775–1789:
The Art of American Power during the Early Republic (2011)
The Hamiltonian Vision, 1789–1800:
The Art of American Power during the Early Republic (2012)
The Jeffersonian Vision, 1801–1815:
The Art of American Power during the Early Republic (2012)
The Age of Jackson and the Art of American Power, 1815–1848 (2013)
THE AGE OF LINCOLN
AND THE ART OF AMERICAN POWER, 1848–1876
WILLIAM NESTER
© 2013 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska
All rights reserved.
Potomac Books is an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nester, William R., 1956–
The age of Lincoln and the art of American power, 1848–1876 / William Nester.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61234-658-8 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. United States—Politics and government—1849–1877. 2. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809–1865—Influence. 3. Power (Social sciences)—United States—History—19th century. 4. Manifest Destiny. 5. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865. 6. Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865–1877) I. Title.
E415.7.N37 2014
973.7—dc23
2013034651
Set in Adobe Garamond Pro by Hannah Gokie.
Designed by Laura Wellington.
CONTENTS
Introduction: Abraham Lincoln and the Art of Power
Part 1. Manifest Destiny, 1848–1860
1. Eighteen Forty-Eight
2. Young Lincoln
3. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
4. Bleeding Kansas
5. Dred Scott and Harpers Ferry
6. The Election
Part 2. Civil War, 1861–1865
7. Limited War
8. Emancipation
9. The Hamiltonian Triumph
10. Turning Points
11. Total War
12. With Malice toward None
Part 3. Reconstruction, 1865–1876
13. Revolution
14. Night Riders and Black Codes
15. Frontiers
16. Eighteen Seventy-Six
17. Legacy
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index
Introduction
Abraham Lincoln and the Art of Power
Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do for themselves—in their separate and individual capacities.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Power is essential to everyone’s daily life but usually lurks in the background until a conflict flares. We recognize power when we assert it or fall prey to that of others in a clash of interests. Defining the art of power is as simple as it is profound; it is the ability to get what one wants.
Wielding that art is tough enough at the interpersonal level; the challenges rise with the level of politics. The head of a country obviously asserts and faces arrays of power far greater than that of any individual asserting his or her own interests. Ideally a sovereign government wields power to defend or enhance the interests of the country in which it is embedded. Each country has its own distinct traditions and institutions of power.
America’s art of power is grounded in the Declaration of Independence, which expresses the nation’s ideals, and the Constitution, which provides a system of government designed to realize these ideals. Ultimately the success or failure of a president and his administration can be measured by how well or poorly they advance American interests within the parameters of American ideals and institutions.1
Abraham Lincoln was a master of the art of American power.2 Politics, psychology, and power are distinct but inseparable; to understand and act decisively in one realm is to understand and act decisively in the others. Lincoln knew that power is ultimately rooted not in gun barrels but in human intellects, feelings, and characters and that the most effective way to wield power is through persuasion rather than coercion. Although he probably never heard of let alone read Sun Tzu, he acted on that ancient Chinese philosopher’s core teaching that victory in any struggle is virtually impossible if one fails to know one’s foe or oneself.3
Understanding one’s limits is essential to mastering the art of power. Lincoln was well aware of how the course of human events constrains even the seemingly mightiest positions. Looking back at his years as president, he admitted, “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”4 Yet he was never a fatalist. He simply distinguished between what was possible and what was not and strove to wield “smart power,” or all the appropriate “hard” physical and “soft” psychological powers at his disposal to alleviate or overcome the problems before him.
Lincoln’s art of power was innate rather than trained. When he entered the White House, he had served twelve years in the Illinois assembly but only two years as a congressman in Washington. His managerial experience was limited to being the senior partner in a two-man law firm. When he was twenty-three, he captained a militia company for all of three months. Then for four years, from his inauguration as president on March 4, 1861, to his murder on April 14, 1865, he brilliantly governed, developed the economy, crushed the rebellion, liberated four million people from slavery, and reunified the nation.
He accomplished all that by tapping deep into his profound intelligence, instinct for wielding power, and ability to learn from his mistakes and think outside the box. Had he played chess he would have been a grand master, as he out-thought his opponents in multiple moves ahead in multiple directions and combinations. He always searched for new ways to finesse a problem and did not give up until he succeeded, insisting that “I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.”5 He continually distinguished primary from secondary interests, or castles from pawns. His law partner William Herndon marveled at his skill at “giving away six points and carrying the seventh . . . [with] the whole case hanging on the seventh. Any man who took Lincoln for a simple-minded man would very soon wake up with his back in a ditch.”6
Lincoln’s art of power ultimately reflected his unswerving devotion to the Declaration of Independence’s principles and the Constitution’s institutions, or, as he so elegantly expressed it, “to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” He understood that the struggle for hearts and minds was the essence of politics in a democracy: “In this age and this country, public sentiment is everything. With it nothing can fail; against it nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions. He makes possible the enforcement of these, else impossible.”7
His favorite leadership technique was to set the example. He did so hoping to inspire others to emulate the integrity and reason that guided his search for practical solutions to problems whereby everyone with a stake wins something but not necessarily everything. He
asserted power mostly by appealing to people’s hopes rather than their fears. No one exceeded his power to master a complex subject and reduce it to values and analogies that most people could instantly understand and accept. For instance, how does one argue against this notion: “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”8
All along he tried to shape rather than reflect prevailing public opinions that differed from his own. To that end, he was brilliant at bridging the gap between progressives and conservatives by reining in the former and urging on the latter. As such he was careful that his own principles did not pull his policies faster or further than was prudent. He reported triumphantly in September 1864 that “the public interest and my private interest have been perfectly parallel because in no other way could I serve myself so well as by truly serving the Union.”9
Lincoln’s appreciation for life’s complexities and paradoxes led him to forgo some conventional sources of power. Throughout history, rulers have mobilized the masses by insisting that God is on their side. People who believe that are generally willing to make greater sacrifices than those who do not. But Lincoln thought that resorting to such gross deceptions ultimately weakened rather than strengthened one’s cause. A liberal democracy survives and, ideally, thrives on reason rather than blind faith. His duty as the American president was to educate rather than delude the people. As for God’s will, he wrote, “In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is different from the purpose of either party.”10
For Lincoln, the core philosophical and political problem that he faced as president was “whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose.” His answer, of course, was a resounding no. Yet while he insisted on majority rule, he just as adamantly championed minority rights. And that raised his administration’s second great philosophical and political question, “whether the nation could endure, permanently, half slave and half free.”11
The nature of national power and the nature of government are inseparable. The American debate over the purposes and thus the powers of government is as old as the republic. By the mid-nineteenth century, nearly all Americans adhered to one of three philosophical positions. Hamiltonianism called for a muscular government that worked with the private sector to develop the nation, overcome problems, and promote the potential of all people to better themselves. Jeffersonism and Jacksonism both espoused a bare-bones government but differed on the details. Jeffersonians wanted little more in government than a medium for dealing with foreigners and Indians and delivering the mail, while leaving defense largely in the hands of local militia companies and gunboats in ports. Jacksonians parted with them by insisting on a powerful national army and navy. Both asserted that prosperity spreads best when government lets markets and private enterprise alone.
Abraham Lincoln was a lifelong, fervent Hamiltonian. For him, “the legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do for themselves—in their separate and individual capacities.”12 That principle was rooted in his acute observations of the world. Without constraints, the powerful few repress and exploit the weak many. A government’s role is not just to protect the weak from the world’s bullies, both foreign and domestic, but to strengthen the weak so that they can eventually take care of themselves. To that end in the early 1790s, Alexander Hamilton devised a set of specific policies designed to enhance the wealth and thus the power of all Americans and the entire nation. He and his Federalist Party fought to enact a national bank to regulate the money supply, establish a sound currency, and pay off the national debt; investments in canals, roads, and ports, the skeleton of an economy; a high tariff that provided the government with revenues and manufacturers with protection from predatory foreign rivals; and an army and navy strong enough to deter foreign aggression. For complex reasons, Thomas Jefferson and his Republican Party vanquished the Federalists, and Jeffersonism largely prevailed for the next couple of decades. During the 1820s, Jefferson’s Republican Party morphed into Jackson’s Democratic Party, and Jacksonism competed with Jeffersonism to dominate the party and the nation. Hamiltonianism reemerged with Henry Clay’s “American System” and his Whig Party that he founded in 1832. Lincoln joined the Whigs that year and remained a devoted member until the party’s demise in 1854. He then joined the Republican Party that emerged that year and espoused Hamiltonianism enhanced with a homestead act to help families settle farms in the West, a transcontinental railroad to the Pacific Ocean, schooling for all children, and land-grant colleges for the gifted. As president, Lincoln not only succeeded in enacting every item on the Hamiltonian agenda except a national bank, he did so as he struggled to overcome a far greater challenge to the nation’s fate.
A distinct age of American history unfolded between the Mexican War’s end in 1848 and Reconstruction’s end in 1876.13 The future of slavery and black Americans was the core political question during those nearly three decades. Politicians failed to overcome a series of crises over those questions that culminated with the South’s secession, followed by a catastrophic Civil War, abolition, and the South’s “Reconstruction.”
While that age’s central issues and bookends are clear enough, what is it best called? The Age of Jackson (1815–48) that preceded it was clearly overshadowed by its namesake’s commanding personality, ideology, and policies.14 Did such a larger-than-life leader dominate the next twenty-eight years?
How about the Age of Lincoln? Although Abraham Lincoln was among seven men who served as president during those years, history has been just if not kind to his colleagues. Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Ulysses Grant have been rated either mediocrities or much worse. To varying degrees, each failed to comprehend let alone overcome the crucial challenges that he faced.15
In contrast, Abraham Lincoln was a giant in character and deeds. While the others mostly provided lessons in what not to do, Lincoln alone mastered the art of American power during this era. No president has ever faced a worse threat to America. Eleven states rebelled and warred against the United States. Lincoln decisively confronted and eventually overcame this crisis. Most Americans adore Abraham Lincoln for two truly great accomplishments: “he saved the Union and freed the slaves.” Yet he also found time to work with congressional leaders to enact virtually the entire Hamilton agenda. As such he represented that age’s progressive zeitgeist or spirit. No one during these nearly three decades was a more eloquent voice for moderation, reason, compromise, and wisdom in addressing the nation’s divisive issues, with slavery and its legacy their core. And in doing so he persistently excelled at the art of American power even if he only briefly wielded it.
Abraham Lincoln proved to be a brilliant master of the art of power because he was as pragmatic as he was progressive. Indeed, the two are inseparable. It is impossible truly to be one without being the other. One crucial principle underlay all others and guided Lincoln throughout his life: “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.”16 He excelled in all of the president’s duties, not just as the chief commander but as America’s chief diplomat, economist, educator, humanist, moralist, and nationalist.
After Jesus, Abraham Lincoln is history’s most written about character. He is America’s most celebrated and beloved national icon. Much larger than life, a statue of him is enthroned within a marble temple facing Washington’s obelisk a mile away and the Capitol an equal distance beyond. His profile on the copper penny at once recalls his lowly origins and his stunning rise to power. Yet, despite his familiarity and the millions of words written about him by hundreds of authors, Lincoln remains elusive, enigmatic. His character
was a labyrinth. Tragedies deepened his natural melancholy. Although no president was more introspective, he loved swapping tales with others even as he emotionally kept them at arm’s length. He could crack the most ribald remark one moment and the most profound one the next. His happiest moments were spent romping with his children or riding the court circuit with his fellow lawyers.
The history that we read about was not inevitable. Decisions matter. Different leaders facing the same problem may make completely different choices and thus wrench history in unexpected directions. Any leader’s decisions are the outcome of a struggle between his character and circumstances; they depend on how he defines what interests are at stake and what means are at hand to best assert them. The Age of Lincoln and the Art of American Power explores how Abraham Lincoln and other key leaders from 1848 to 1876 reacted to the crises and opportunities that they faced and in doing so decisively shaped American history.
1
Manifest Destiny, 1848–1860
1
Eighteen Forty-Eight
Allow the President to invade a . . . nation whenever he shall deem it necessary . . . and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
We were sent to provoke a fight, but it was essential that Mexico should commence it.
ULYSSES S. GRANT
Boys, I believe I have found a gold mine.
JAMES MARSHALL
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.
DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS
This is the end of the earth, but I am composed.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
As 1848 dawned, the nation’s most pressing and divisive issue was the ongoing war against Mexico. This conflict appeared close to ending. American troops had routed the Mexicans in nearly every battle and had overrun New Mexico, California, northeastern Mexico, and the strip of land from Veracruz to Mexico City. Gen. Winfield Scott and his victorious army occupied the capital. Fighting had ended on all fronts and the soldiers now anxiously waited as the diplomats haggled.
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