Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
No better way to reflect on New Year's Day than to think on the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Abraham Lincoln brought about a new birth of freedom for our nation at the price of the greatest expansion of executive power in our history.
But was Lincoln a "dictator," as liberal scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. or Edwin Corwin once said? Or did he properly expand presidential powers to react to the greatest challenge in our history?
Here's my take, on the opinion page of Fox News:
Lincoln’s greatness is inextricably linked to his broad vision of the executive. He invoked his authority as commander in chief and chief executive to conduct war, initially without congressional permission, when many were unsure whether secession meant war. He considered the entire South the field of battle. While he depended on congressional support for men and material, Lincoln controlled all tactics, strategy, and policy. Only Lincoln’s broad interpretation of his commander in chief authority made the sweeping step of freeing the slaves possible.
Lincoln image via Shutterstock.
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Mar '12
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Lincoln was both. He made the Presidency a "dictatorship" in the classic sense by using extra-ordinary powers in a time of crisis. The key is that this use of power was temporary. Given the national emergency he was dealing with, his use of "dictatorial" powers was prudent.
Jul '12
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
I'll never get over the irony of "conservatives" lauding Lincoln as a good President, especially when the revisionism of "freeing the slaves" is placed at his feet.
And nothing says "prudence" like a wholly unavoidable war that destroyed a region of the country and cost more than 600,000 lives.
Edited on January 1, 2013 at 5:48pmMar '11
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Oh man, is this Libertarian Lincoln-hate bait. I'm with you, John. Lincoln acted as Commander in Chief and his actions were aimed at ending the war with the United States whole. Lincoln never pitched emancipation as the reason for war, but he understood it to be a tool for winning it.
Edited on January 1, 2013 at 7:19pmOct '10
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
If memory serves, the South announced it's secession before Lincoln took office as President. The South attacked Ft. Sumter and declared war on the North. Lincoln, as President and Commander In Chief, acted as such. Since Congress was not in Washington at the moment, he acted and then requested permission from Congress when they returned.
The South has many justifiable complaints about the aftermath of the war, but once again, Lincoln was not there. A Southerner, John Wilkes Booth assassinated him, leaving the South with Johnson, who owns most of what happened.
Sadly, the Southern world view of the negro as an inferior race bred for servitude is the cause of the Civil War. Northern industrial power and other Congressional infractions against the South were wrong, but to argue that the South did not bring that war on itself is generational antipathy that rivals anything the Serbs and Slavs have ever carried.
Jul '12
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Do we need to replay here Lincoln's own thoughts of the "Negro race"?
This "Southern worldview" was the view of 98% of America outside of a few Presbyterians of Covenanter heritage and a minority of the abolition movement.
Jul '11
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
@RayconandLindacon #4:
"If memory serves"
You guys were there?
Dec '10
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Not a dictator. Lincoln only freed the slaves in the areas that were in rebellion. Freeing of slaves in what remained of the constitutional republic still required an amendment.
Jun '10
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
I agree with Schrodinger's Cat.
I don't believe Lincoln was by inclination dictatorial. But, let's face it, he was dealing with a problem that was, shall we say, "existential." He did things that in a quiet period he would never have done (e.g., suspension of habeas corpus). So let's judge him in the context of crisis he was dealing with.
As a conservative, I have no problem viewing Lincoln as a hero. Allen Guelzo, one of our best Lincoln scholars, has made, over and over, a strong case that conservatives can lay claim on the Lincoln legacy far more than can Obama.
Edited on January 1, 2013 at 8:06pmDec '10
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
I have a little problem with that because our constitution is not a list of great ideas for happy times. It's a document for all times and seasons. If it's not good enough for the worst of times, then it's not good enough.
Jul '10
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
This is why I never understood the wild acclaim for the Emancipation Proclamation. It declared slaves free in areas that Lincoln had no control over. The real end to slavery was the 13th amendment.
Jul '12
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
I'm not certain I understand what about Lincoln a conservative or libertarian could recommend.
He expanded government power beyond the Constitution and made the Presidency an almost Imperial office.
Much of what's wrong with our government can be traced back to Lincoln. I think we'd be much better off if Stephen Douglas or John Bell had become President. We'd have avoided the bloodbath of the Civil War.
That's something I rarely hear acknowledged. Lincoln didn't just ruthlessly win the Civil War he caused that bloodbath with his election.
Oct '10
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Rocket City Dave: I think we'd be much better off if Stephen Douglas or John Bell had become President. We'd have avoided the bloodbath of the Civil War.
That's something I rarely hear acknowledged. Lincoln didn't just ruthlessly win the Civil War he caused that bloodbath with his election. · 38 minutes ago
I believe that it was the voters of the United States that committed the act of electing Lincoln. Had Douglas won, slavery would have been secure until a civil war eventually happened.
Which of the two alternatives do you prefer? That a civil war ended slavery, or that the negro in America remain a slave until now.
Don't indulge the fantasy that the Southern culture would willingly give up slavery. England ended it peacefully because slaves there were never essential to the functioning economy. They were a luxury of the rich.
Millions of acres of cotton would not pick itself, and the cost of mechanization was beyond the southern economy or it's capabilities. If anything, we can blame Eli Whitney for the Civil War because it was his cotton gin that created the demand that the plantations served.
Jul '10
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Rocket City Dave:He expanded government power beyond the Constitution and made the Presidency an almost Imperial office.
Much of what's wrong with our government can be traced back to Lincoln. I think we'd be much better off if Stephen Douglas or John Bell had become President. We'd have avoided the bloodbath of the Civil War.
That's something I rarely hear acknowledged. Lincoln didn't just ruthlessly win the Civil War he caused that bloodbath with his election. · 1 hour ago
RC notes that secession occurred before Lincoln took office. Careful examination of the events immediately after he took office show Lincoln did pretty much everything to avoid a war. It was that dufus, Beauregard, that fired on a Federal installation. ?And the president was to do nothing.
?Want to blame someone for the Civil War, consider Robert E. Lee. He was a sworn American Army officer, and his state, Virginia, had not seceded. He was offered the command of the Army of the Potomac. Had he accepted, it is quite likely neither Virginia nor North Carolina would have seceded. That would have left the cotton pickers, and they wouldn't have survived on their own.
Apr '12
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Schrodinger's Cat
Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Lincoln was both. He made the Presidency a "dictatorship" in the classic sense by using extra-ordinary powers in a time of crisis. The key is that this use of power was temporary. Given the national emergency he was dealing with, his use of "dictatorial" powers was prudent.
Surely this is true? According to the Constitution:
Section. 2.
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; ...
Lincoln was certainly faced with an unusual crisis. The Southern States (the Confederation) had declared a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, attacked the Northern States (the Union) at Fort Sumter, and began the Civil War ( 1861-65).
On the other hand, the Constitution says nothing about how to deal with such a crisis. Did the Northern States have the legal right to retaliate against the Southern States? The Fort apparently was in Southern Carolina. Did they have the right to try to remove it from what they no doubt saw as a Southern State? What was the law in this situation?
Apr '12
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Forgive my ignorance, but I have never lived in the States so don't understand the nuances of what you are saying, Benjamin, but as a student of American history and politics, really want to do so.
I think I can understand the revisionism of "freeing the slaves" being ironic when lauded by "conservatives". Weren't the Southern States essentially "conservatives, and they definitely didn't want to give up their economic advantage of having a virtually unpaid work force?
But aren't modern "conservatives" different in attitudes? Is that why they can now applaud Lincoln? And, of course, there seem to be so many different opinions on whether Lincoln was a liberal or conservative.
Aren't most people a mixture of all the different ideas out there? Wasn't Lincoln?
Apr '12
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Benjamin Glaser: ...
And nothing says "prudence" like a wholly unavoidable war that destroyed a region of the country and cost more than 600,000 lives. ·
This is my question about the Civil War and Lincoln: was he justified in using force against the Southern States? The war ruined a way of life, beggared the plantation owners on whom so many relied for their living, left desolation, poverty, and so many men and boys injured or dead.
Conservatives are meant to be "prudent", aren't they? Is this what you mean, Benjamin? Lincoln certainly seems more like a Liberal in this determination to follow a principle regardless of the cost in lives. Think French, Russian, etc., revolutions.
Edited on January 1, 2013 at 11:19pmMay '11
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Not a dictator but definitely not a friend of liberty or freedom.
A statesman would have found an easier resolution to secession.
Most Lincoln admirers immediately extol how he preserved the union, but it is not clear why that was necessary or desirable. Lincoln may have freed the slaves, a debatable point, but he did that by sacrificing the right to self-determination, our right recognized in the Declaration of Independence.
He wasn't a dictator, he was the first successful big government president and he killed more people than any president.
Nov '10
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Ditto Skyler!
If Lincoln was so visionary why didn't he try an economic plan whereby the Southern planters, already at the mercy of Northern industrialists, would have been compensated for freed slaves by the Federal Government, the slaves would have been given working wages and education or land out west to resettle. Sure it might have cost $8-10Billion by what is that against the deaths of 600,000 Americans? Probably was an unacceptable price to Northern interests who thought nothing about utilizing child labor on a 18 hour, six day work load for pennies a day.
By the way, if the War had not been fought, and the status quo remained, something Lincoln would have been happy with and accepted, then what would have happened in 20 to 30 years when steam and the tractor would have made the slave obsolete? What would have happened then? Kick 9-10 million people to the curb with no education, training or wealth? I think you would have seen a civil war that made the one we had seem like a bar fight.
Nov '10
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Incidentally, Southerners came back to the fold within a generation of the War being over. To equate my ancestors with Serbs, Arabs or any other group fighting for centuries is highly insulting and insensitive.
Apr '12
Re: Lincoln: Dictator Or Prudent President?
Gus Marvinson: Oh man, is this Libertarian Lincoln-hate bait. I'm with you, John. Lincoln acted as Commander in Chief and his actions were aimed at ending the war with the United States whole. Lincoln never pitched emancipation as the reason for war, but he understood it to be a tool for winning it. · 5 hours ago
Edited 3 hours ago
If the Southern States didn't want to give up their practically free work force of slaves, why was emancipation a tool for ending the war? Did the Northern States want it signed before the war ended because it probably would be harder to achieve afterwards?
The facts are easy to learn, but there is always so much more involved behind the scenes, as it were.