Lincoln inspires such interest because his life is the casting of an extremely elusive and complicated character amid the drama of the United States’ greatest crisis, which reverberates even now. In the latest study of that life, biographer Jon Meacham gives us a Lincoln for the present moment, when statuesque figures of American myth are being set on the bar of 21st-century standards. “And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American War” is a long answer to the vexed question of the Civil War president’s relationship to slavery.
“This book,” Meacham writes, “describes Lincoln’s struggle to do justice as he defined it”—that is, to pursue slavery’s “final extinction,” as he put it—”within the political universe in which he and his country they lived in him.”
That political universe has uncomfortable but illuminating parallels to our own. Lincoln’s time was one of passionate intensity, of loud voices and closed minds, of demagogues who exploited public opinion and of conflict-averse officials who cowered in fear of it.
Lincoln knew from childhood, Meacham points out, that slavery was evil and mocked America’s founding rhetoric. However, he was not content to be morally correct. He wanted to be an effective force for change. And he realized that ending slavery would require immense strength and power—both political and persuasive—which he pursued deliberately, cunningly, and tirelessly.
The story comes alive from the sheer impossibility of it all. This man who sought historical immortality had his beginnings in a family known primarily for its abject poverty and sexual promiscuity. He had no education to speak of. He was homely in some eyes and downright ugly in others. The greatest orator of his age spoke in a loud, grating voice. He was an inept seeker and socially awkward.
In a democratic republic, the force which cannot be long ignored is the clamor of public opinion, a fierce beast easily roused but with great difficulty controlled. Lincoln really respected public opinion, unlike those politicians who believe that the secret of success is to learn to fake a sincere respect for the people. He was of the people; he knew what it was to be looked down upon, to be slighted, to be pitied. He knew the latent possibilities of ordinary people as well as their obvious limitations.
There is much to praise in Meacham’s delightful original book. I will single out just one such gem, because it illustrates the author’s longevity of approach to the unfathomable depths of his subject. He reminds us that Lincoln came of age in a country “stirred by debates about democracy and public life.” The technology of political noise was advancing rapidly as newspapers proliferated and telegraphs shrunk distances. “To interfere in the government of society and to speak about it,” noted the French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville, “is the only pleasure that an American knows.”
In this context, Lincoln’s early address to the sober society in Springfield, Ill., takes on new significance. Other biographies cite this 1842 event as another rung in Lincoln’s rise. But in Meacham’s account, Lincoln speaks for our time as well as his. Straight talk is no way to win people over to a cause. “To be hectored and condemned; to be told they were entirely wrong” was for Lincoln “a road not to reform, but to nonconformity,” writes Meacham. “If you would win a man to your cause,” he quotes Lincoln, “First convince him that you are his sincere friend.”
“On the contrary,” continued the young frontier politician, “suppose to dictate his judgment, or order his action, or mark him as a man to be shunned and despised, and he will withdraw into himself.” The “head and heart” of the person who wants to change becomes as impenetrable as the “hard shell of the turtle”.
This insight into human nature led Lincoln along the tortuous path to emancipation. Until the last sentence of his last monumental speech, Lincoln acted with malice toward none, charity toward all. If this made him less than a perfect scourge of human prejudice and cowardice, it made him a more effective politician. Lincoln got results.
