One
such idea I have often heard expressed is the notion that, if he were alive
now, Abraham Lincoln certainly would not be a Republican. I can’t keep track of
the number of Democrats who have suggested that a modern-day Lincoln would have
converted to their political party.
I’VE
ALWAYS BEEN skeptical of the suggestion. Not so much because I think Republican
partisans of the modern-day are somehow correct in their way of thinking about
the biggest-name politico Illinois has ever produced.
It’s
just that I think Lincoln himself might have become so repulsed by some of the
actions committed GOP of the 21st Century that if he had left, it
would be to create yet another political party.
Perhaps
someone like H. Ross Perot, goofy ears and all, is the modern-day equivalent of
Lincoln. Not that I’m implying the Texas billionaire who actually gained a
significant number of votes when he tried running for president in 1992 has
much in common with Lincoln.
But
perhaps I just think Lincoln would be ornery and independent enough to find all
of the current political structure somewhat repugnant!
LET’S
NOT FORGET that during his lifetime, Lincoln was affiliated primarily with the
Whig Party. When the potential for slavery to spread into the territories we
now think of as the Plains states split the Whigs into factions, Lincoln wound
up eventually going with the one that opposed slavery.
Which
wound up becoming the Republican Party, and Lincoln became their first
presidential candidate who managed to win the election.
I
do believe that the extent to which the old Southern agenda of “state’s rights”
being used to justify repulsive racial policies and other means of imposing on
the civil rights of certain people who don’t fit their image of who belongs in
this country would have bothered Lincoln.
But
I wonder if Lincoln would see the modern-day Democratic Party as being a bit dysfunctional
in its own right – so many factions that have trouble uniting that the
Republicans in their ideological rigidity are still capable of winning elections.
OF
COURSE, THE reason we pay so much attention to Lincoln’s memory is because of
the events of 150 years ago Tuesday. Just days after the first military
surrender that essentially ended the Civil War (even though fighting continued
in spurts for two more months), Lincoln was shot. Under circumstances that ensure his critics in life were permanently disgraced.
Lincoln
died early the next morning, laid out in a bed so small that he had to be put
on it on an angle. And yes, generations of Chicago schoolchildren have gone on
field trips to the Chicago Historical Society museum to see that bed (along
with the charred crackers that survived the Chicago Fire of 1871).
In
fact, a part of me would be inclined to go to the museum Tuesday to see the
bed, except that it is on loan for the year to the Lincoln Presidential Library
and Museum in Springfield. That’s a bit much of a drive for me to make on a
whim.
So
perhaps we should spend part of the day pondering Lincoln’s memory, which gets
distorted in so many ways by people eager to simplify his story – particularly those
too eager to engage in Confederate historic revisionism.
LINCOLN
MAY NOT have been the pure abolitionist who was willing to do away with slavery
of black people for the common good. Although his critics of the day were
certainly willing to see him that way to benefit their own hostile thoughts.
Just
last week, the Washington Post published a commentary suggesting that, “Today’s
GOP is the party of Jefferson Davis, not of Lincoln.”
That
might be a bit simplistic a thought, but there is a certain amount of truth to
it – in that I wonder if modern-day Republicans find a bit of shame in the fact
that their political party historically was known as the “Party of Lincoln.”
Wishing
instead they could regard Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon of the “Southern
Strategy” and Ronald Reagan (who throughout the years chased off those
Republicans who were motivated by Lincoln’s ideals) as their true founders.
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