Lincoln and the American Founding

Concise Lincoln Library

by Lucas E. Morel

In this persuasive work of intellectual history, Lucas E. Morel argues that the most important influence on Abraham Lincoln’s political thought and practice was what he learned from the leading figures of and documents from the birth of the United States. In this systematic account of those principles, Morel compellingly demonstrates that to know Lincoln well is to understand thoroughly the founding of America.
 
With each chapter describing a particular influence, Morel leads readers from the Founding Father, George Washington; to the founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution; to the founding compromise over slavery; and finally to a consideration of how the original intentions of the Founding Fathers should be respected in light of experience, progress, and improvements over time. Within these key discussions, Morel shows that without the ideals of the American Revolution, Lincoln’s most famous speeches would be unrecognizable, and the character of the nation would have lost its foundation on the universal principles of human equality, individual liberty, and government by the consent of the governed.
Lincoln thought that the principles of human equality and individual rights could provide common ground for a diverse people to live as one nation and that some old things, such as the political ideals of the American founding, were worth preserving. He urged Americans to be vigilant in maintaining the institutions of self-government and to exercise and safeguard the benefits of freedom for future generations. Morel posits that adopting the way of thinking and speaking Lincoln advocated, based on the country’s founding, could help mend our current polarized discourse and direct the American people to employ their common government on behalf of a truly common good.
 

Genres: History

160 pages, Hardcover

Published June 9, 2020

Reviews

[Victoria Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

MY TAKE
“The struggle for American independence was based on the equality of all human beings.” To perpetuate this great American experiment, we must look to our past. As Morel concludes, civic memory is key to the perpetuation of self-government. In the tumultuous times of his generation, Lincoln appealed to the ideals championed by our Founding Fathers: human equality and liberty for all. These ideals underpin the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which are respectively the ends and means to enduring American prosperity. Lincoln was a consummate statesman and diplomatic in nature, and it is this nature and approach to governing that resulted in his success. I enjoyed this concise, yet academically thorough dive into the strategies he utilized to keep our Union united.

SOMETHING I LEARNED
After focusing on his law practice after serving as a state representative and in Congress, Lincoln later re-entered political life in 1854 once it became clear slavery would not die a slow death. I also learned that Lincoln was inaugurated as President on March 4, 1861, not January 20. Inauguration Day moved to January 20, beginning in 1937, following ratification of the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution, where it has remained since.

FAVORITE QUOTE
“Those who desire freedom for themselves must not deprive it from others...to be secure in one’s own freedom, one must not deny someone else his freedom.”

[David Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Morel has produced an exceptional work of scholarship. Digging deep into the primary literature, Morel has brilliantly dissected Lincoln's fealty to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the examples of the founders. The book is part of the Concise Lincoln Library series, a growing library of books that examine Lincoln's life. The keyword here is concise; while each book is short in length, the depth of scholarship is unsurpassed. So too with this particular volume. All students of Lincoln should read this book, and use it repeatedly as a resource.

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The plainest print cannot be read through a gold eagle.

This is a short examination of how Abraham Lincoln connected with the writings and actions of those we now call the Founding Fathers, especially those things written in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Specifically, he saw the Constitution as a means to fulfill the principles of the Declaration.

He attributed America’s success not to a governmental system but to “a philosophical cause,” an idea “entwining itself more closely about the human heart.” Lincoln thought the Constitution and union existed for the sake of something higher, what he called “the principle of ‘Liberty to all.’”

His views contrasted with leading Democrats of the time such as Stephen Douglas and John Calhoun, who saw in the Constitution the explanation for the Declaration—or at least, such explanation as they wanted to see.

According to Morel, Lincoln had exited politics, and re-entered it only because of their new interpretation of the founding documents that attempted to make slavery a good thing rather than something that must be eradicated over time.

Lincoln explained that their interpretation of the Constitution ignored important facts such as that the founders kept any mention of slavery out of the Constitution; that they put in the Constitution the power to ban the slave trade; and that the founders themselves banned slavery in federal territories outside of states.

Lincoln argued that these were all tools to end slavery and fulfill the promise of the Declaration and had been put there specifically for that purpose. He wasn’t using hyperbole when he argued that Douglas’s and the Democrats approach to our founding documents put the freedom of everyone, including whites, in jeopardy.

Like the Democrats Lincoln debated, the Know-nothing party also interpreted the Declaration as applying only to whites, and only specific kinds of English-born whites. Douglas himself once “accidentally” said that the Declaration applied only to English-born whites. When Douglas accused Lincoln of trafficking with Know-nothing ideals he was, like many of his political descendants today, accusing someone else of his own failings.

Lincoln would have recognized modern politicians who rail against walls while living behind them; who forbid self-defense while hiring armed security. In his day, the same politicians praised slavery but…

…although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.

“It is the only good thing which no man ever seeks the good of, for himself.”

Lincoln was acutely concerned with the meaning of the founding documents, what he called “the Union as it was”, similar to what we would call “originalism”. Lincoln recognized implicitly in almost everything he said about the then-modern acceptance of slavery that if the Constitution has no original meaning, if its meaning is subject to the whims of an elite few it is not a living Constitution but a dying one. He saw this in the Taney Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision which in his view rewrote the Constitution to the point of death. He feared the dying of the Constitution and the Union because he saw in both the hope of the Declaration’s promise of “Liberty to all”.

This is a short book, and dense, about the principles of one of our most important presidents during one of our most trying times.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some social justice activists argue that America was founded as a country for white people and that racism is written into our DNA.

Ironically, this view is popular on both extremes of racism and anti-racism: both the alt right and white nationalists on the one hand and antifa and black nationalists on the other hand seem to agree that America is a racist country. That's why some of the latter write it as "Amerikkka."

Lucas Morel offers a different view. He looks back at two eras of American history to find that the nation was neither founded nor sustained on a racist basis, but instead, on a basis of human equality.

The words of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal" set the original promise of the country by the founders. So, the Revolutionary era is the first time that Morel looks back at. And he's joined at looking back to 1776 by Abraham Lincoln, who also looked back to the founders from the second time of Morel's interest, the Civil War.

Lincoln disagreed with Chief Justice Roger Taney that the Declaration and Constitution only conferred rights on white people, as proved by the fact that the founders didn't abolish slavery in the Revolutionary era. Lincoln believed that the founders saw slavery as an evil, albeit a necessary one that they had to tolerate in order to create a union in the first place. But the founders clearly put slavery on the path to gradual extinction, Lincoln argued, by prohibiting its spread to territories controlled by the federal government and by allowing the international slave trade to be abolished in 1808, which Congress did in fact make happen.

Morel concludes by arguing that Lincoln was a liberal conservative who sought to expand freedom based not on new ideas, as activists do today, but by appealing to the old precepts of the founding fathers. Morel finds that this is how all big change has happened in America and he counsels that it's the best way to keep going in the future.

In a time of iconoclasm where Americans think that new always means improved, Morel's own appeal to tradition as a source of progress is refreshing.

[TENN2ARIZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This carefully researched little book emphasized Lincoln's view of the foundational and controlling nature of the Declaration of Independence and its effect on the Constitution. A good and necessssray read in these days of anti-democratic behaviors.