Richard Cohen versus Abraham Lincoln

Richard Cohen's repulsive criticism of the Republican Party, in Monday's Washington Post, has generated big blogosphere buzz:

"The huge role of religion in American politics is nothing new but always a matter for concern nonetheless.  In the years preceding the Civil War, both sides of the slavery issue claimed the endorsement of God.  The 1856 Republican convention concluded with a song that ended like this:

We’ve truth on our side / We’ve God for our guide.  Within five years, Americans were slaughtering one another on the battlefield."

Though he dares not say so openly, Cohen, implicitly, is blaming the Civil War on Republicans being so adamantly opposed to slavery, so adamantly in favor of freedom.  Yes, a Democrat columnist for a Democrat newspaper is finding fault with people who wanted freedom now.  Why should that be surprising?

Truth be told, the Democratic Party is the party of slavery and segregation, Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan.

That first Republican national convention nominated for president a Georgia-born opponent of slavery, John Fremont.  In balloting for the vice presidential nomination, the runner-up was a Kentucky-born opponent of slavery, Abraham Lincoln.

The 1860 Republican presidential nominee made plain his anti-slavery sentiments.  "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong," Lincoln would later write, "I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel."  In contrast, his three opponents -- Stephen Douglas, John Breckinridge and John Bell -- were slave-holders.

Pundits and politicians who disdain "the huge role of religion in American politics" should note that the Emancipation Proclamation concludes by invoking "the gracious favor of Almighty God."  Defying demands that he rescind the proclamation, the president stood firm, lest he "should be damned in time and eternity."

A popular Republican campaign song in 1860 was For Lincoln and Liberty.  To many Democrats back then, its conclusion definitely was a matter of concern.

Then up with the banner so glorious,
The star-spangled red, white, and blue.
We'll fight till our banner's victorious,
For Lincoln and Liberty, too.

"With malice toward none, with charity for all" is the most famous line from his Second Inaugural Address, but not to be overlooked is the preceding passage showing just how highly resolved was Abraham Lincoln:

"If God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

The first Republican president then called for "firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right."  Unconcerned about the huge role of religion in American politics was Abraham Lincoln. 

In 1863, Lincoln's first Treasury Secretary, Salmon Chase, coined a phrase, literally.  His words still appear on U.S. coins and have become a thread in our national fabric.  What are those words?

In God We Trust

Michael Zak is the author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of the GOP from the Republican point of view.  See www.grandoldpartisan.com for more information.

Comments

[Michael Zak]

Thanks, blockade runner, for the comments, though I do disagree with them. Few white people of his day were less white supremacist than was Abraham Lincoln, and he was never for secession.

[blockade runner]

Another Lincoln worshipper. A white supremacist, you can cite Lincoln taking a variety of positions depending on what was expedient at the time. He was for secession, before he was against it. Sounds like the archtype of modern politicians.