When Abraham Lincoln was born, the
Republic was only 33 years old. George Washington had been dead only 10 years
and many of those who had signed their names to the Declaration of Independence
were still living and active. James Madison was president - our 4th, and the
people of Lincoln's generation were not far removed from the events surrounding
the nation's painful birth. The population of the infant states was still only
7 million, although that number would double in the next decade; the Indiana
Territory was the western "frontier."
Back in 1783 when the Constitutional
Convention reached agreement over a supreme written law- thanks to compromise -
they had failed to resolve three fundamental problems. These three
"jaw-breaker" questions hovered over all those proceedings, but the
founding fathers became convinced that in these areas of disagreement, there could
be no chance of compromise. Many present there in Philadelphia believed in
their hearts that these unresolved differences would eventually bring about the
dissolution of the Union they had forged. Elbridge Gerry from Massachusetts,
Roger Sherman from Connecticut, and even Madison himself wrote of their fears.
The three unsettled problems loomed large by the time Abraham Lincoln was old
enough to become a student of Government: Slavery!! States rights vs. Federal!! and Secession!!
One of the reasons George
Washington had allowed himself (reluctantly) to be persuaded into accepting a
second term as President was that of a growing trend toward partisanism. The constitution did not
contemplate the emergence of political parties. Its framers had grown old and
suspicious observing all that was wrong with England's "parliamentary
democracy". Despite all his worst fears, Washington witnessed - and
abhorred - the rise of multi-party politics, and a growing tendency toward international adventurism. Even before
he left office he saw seeds being sewn which would result in the deterioration
of relations with England (and the War of 1812;) conflict with the western
tribes over Indian land rights, and the insoluble differences between states
with respect to slavery.
The political environment into which
Lincoln was born saw two principle parties, the Democrats (pro-slavery,
pro-South and largely pro-states rights,) and Whigs (more centrist and largely
anti-slavery.) Increasingly though, both parties were becoming fragmented over
the slavery issue, and the birth of a new more-solidly anti-slavery party was
likely. (This would be the Republican party with which Lincoln would almost
immediately align himself along with other Whigs.) Other issues which divided
office holders swirled around the development of western lands, and even here
slavery and its expansion was at the heart of debate.
Slavery questions hark back to the
founding fathers. Washington, though a slave owner, deplored the practice,
freed his own at his death, and worked toward phasing out the system. Jefferson
tried to lead Virginia toward being the first state to outlaw slavery outright,
and in fact that state had embarked upon the implementation of a solution prior
to the outbreak of civil war. When Lincoln observed in his debates with Stephen
Douglas, that the nation could not continue "half slave and half
free," that it must necessarily become "all one or all the
other," he was putting his finger directly on the problem.
With the passage of the Missouri
Compromise in 1820, a national disaster seemed to have been averted when
congressional controls on the admission of "new" territories at least
produced a temporary quieting of southern outcries of unfairness. But all of
that changed dramatically in 1858 with the Dred Scott decision, which among
other things denied the former slave's argument while finding that slaves had
no standing in any court. As disappointing as that ruling was for Republicans
and all abolishioners, Judge Roger B. Taney's southern-leaning Supreme Court
went a huge step farther in ruling that Congress did not have the authority to
outlaw (or limit) slavery anywhere! Thus
reversing the Missouri Compromise, and making the American Civil War
inevitable.
Personal Note: For
all of my life, I have believed that Abraham Lincoln's birth was no accident. ACC
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