Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome to episode three of my podcast on the
Speaker 1: Broken Constitution, Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America. In
Speaker 1: episode one, I talked about how the Constitution of seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty seven and the way that it was a compromise
Speaker 1: between slave states and free states in order to preserve
Speaker 1: and enable the expansion of the Union. In episode two,
Speaker 1: I brought us into the breaking of that Constitution by
Speaker 1: the Confederacy and Abraham Lincoln's corresponding breaking of the Constitution
Speaker 1: as it was then understood, both by going to war
Speaker 1: to coerce the Southern States back into the Union, and
Speaker 1: then by suspending Habeas corpus unilaterally, even though that was
Speaker 1: a power reserve to Congress, and through that becoming a
Speaker 1: kind of a dictator, one who suspended the freedom of
Speaker 1: expression in the United States through the duration of the war,
Speaker 1: arresting ultimately many thousands of people and shutting down hundreds
Speaker 1: of newspapers. In today's episode, I want to turn to
Speaker 1: the most memorable, significant, and consequential breaking of the Constitution
Speaker 1: that Abraham Lincoln achieved, the one that had the effect
Speaker 1: of transforming not only the meaning of the Civil War,
Speaker 1: but transforming the Constitution itself in the most fundamental way,
Speaker 1: so much so that the Constitution of today is no
Speaker 1: longer the Constitution of seventeen eighty seven, but something new
Speaker 1: and different, the Constitution of Abraham Lincoln, and then ultimately
Speaker 1: the Constitution of the Reconstruction Amendments, the thirteenth, fourteenth, and
Speaker 1: fifteenth Amendments. To do that, we have to begin with
Speaker 1: a recognition of a fact that we've effectively supprest, and
Speaker 1: that is that when the Civil War began, Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 1: remained exactly as committed to the compromised Constitution and therefore
Speaker 1: to the preservation of slavery as he had been through
Speaker 1: the entirety of his political career up to that point.
Speaker 1: The evidence that indicates the depth of this comes from
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address. Now you may be thinking
Speaker 1: to yourself, well, wait a minute, what was Lincoln's first
Speaker 1: inaugural address. His second inaugural address, which i'll talk about
Speaker 1: a bit later in this podcast, is part of the
Speaker 1: canon of American political and constitutional thought. When you visit
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Memorial, it's right up there on one of
Speaker 1: the walls, across from the Gettysburg Address. The other one
Speaker 1: of Lincoln's most famous speeches, But the first Inaugural Address
Speaker 1: is all but forgotten, and the reason for that is
Speaker 1: that it began in its first full power graph by
Speaker 1: quoting a statement that Lincoln had made in debating Stephen
Speaker 1: Douglas when he ran for the Senate in eighteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: and in it Lincoln said, quote, I have no purpose,
Speaker 1: directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery
Speaker 1: in the states where it exists. I believe I have
Speaker 1: no lawful right to do so, and I have no
Speaker 1: inclination to do so. The reason for that was straightforward,
Speaker 1: Southern secession needed to be reversed. Lincoln saw his goal
Speaker 1: as recreating the Union. The Union had always existed on
Speaker 1: the basis of a compromise over slavery, and he had
Speaker 1: no idea of any possible mode of recreating the Union
Speaker 1: without recreating the compromise over slavery. His promise in the
Speaker 1: Inaugural Address to respect the institution of slavery was therefore
Speaker 1: a crucial part of his vision of how to restore
Speaker 1: the Union. This view continued through the first months of
Speaker 1: Lincoln's presidency. At the end of August of eighteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: John C. Fremont, who had been the eighteen fifty six
Speaker 1: Republican presidential candidate and whom Lincoln had made a general
Speaker 1: in Missouri, announced that he was freeing the slaves of
Speaker 1: all rebels found in his territory. This, in short, was
Speaker 1: pretty fundamentally similar to what would be Lincoln's active emancipation.
Speaker 1: More than a year later, Lincoln wrote to Fremont and
Speaker 1: told him, no, you cannot do this. I am requesting
Speaker 1: that you retract your emancipation order. Fremont said, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do that. If you want the order reversed,
Speaker 1: you have to do it. So Lincoln fired Fremont and
Speaker 1: reversed the order himself. In a letter that Lincoln wrote
Speaker 1: to a friend just a few days later on September
Speaker 1: twenty one, eighteen sixty seven, he stood behind his decision
Speaker 1: regarding Fremont's emancipation order. The proclamation, he said, is and
Speaker 1: I quote, simply dictatorship. It assumes that the general may
Speaker 1: do anything he pleases, confiscate the lands, and free the
Speaker 1: slaves of loyal people as well as disloyal ones. In
Speaker 1: other words, Lincoln believed that for a general to use
Speaker 1: his war powers to free slaves was an act of dictatorship,
Speaker 1: and he was not using that term in the positive
Speaker 1: sense of the word. For Lincoln, dictatorship was wrong, and
Speaker 1: the Constitution did not authorize him or therefore the General's
Speaker 1: working for him to free slaves as a matter of
Speaker 1: military necessity. It took Lincoln more than a year for
Speaker 1: his views to evolve and change. In the book The
Speaker 1: Broken Constitution, I take the reader day by day, just
Speaker 1: about sometimes even minute by minute, through the process that
Speaker 1: Lincoln went through to shift his views from the view
Speaker 1: that it would be an active dictatorship to free slaves
Speaker 1: to the view that perhaps he ought to do so himself.
Speaker 1: To summarize it here, I would say that there were
Speaker 1: two major forces that push Lincoln in this direction. The
Speaker 1: first was a circumstantial one. He gradually realized that it
Speaker 1: would be difficult or impossible for him to win the
Speaker 1: war by creating a sufficient incentive for the Southern States
Speaker 1: to rejoin the Union voluntarily. As long as Lincoln thought
Speaker 1: that the Southern States might voluntarily rejoin, it was necessary
Speaker 1: to maintain the possibility of compromise, and that compromise, in
Speaker 1: turn required preserving slavery. But if it turned out that
Speaker 1: the Southern States were not going to compromise, We're not
Speaker 1: going to return voluntarily, then what followed from that was
Speaker 1: that it was at least possible to impose an outcome
Speaker 1: to the war on them. If that solution were therefore
Speaker 1: to be imposed by military force, Lincoln had the possibility
Speaker 1: at least of changing the situation with respect to the
Speaker 1: compromised Constitution as it existed before the war. The new
Speaker 1: constitution that would then have to emerge would no longer
Speaker 1: be based on a compromise. It would instead be based
Speaker 1: on a principle, and indeed on a moral principle, namely
Speaker 1: the moral principle of the end of slavery and the
Speaker 1: equality of African Americans. Lincoln did not deceive himself into
Speaker 1: thinking the Southern States would ever agree to this. This
Speaker 1: was an outcome they would have to be imposed by
Speaker 1: military force. The second element that contributed most fundamentally to
Speaker 1: Lincoln changing his views was the depth of his embrace
Speaker 1: of the idea that, through military necessity, he was authorized
Speaker 1: by the Constitution to do whatever it took to win
Speaker 1: the war. Here, his suspension of habeas corpus and his
Speaker 1: suspension of the free press were actually the groundwork for
Speaker 1: Lincoln's realization that if he could do that, he could
Speaker 1: do anything, and anything included breaking the Constitution as he
Speaker 1: had always understood it, and that included emancipating slaves. Remember that,
Speaker 1: all the way back early in his career, in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty eight, in his Lyceum address which I mentioned in
Speaker 1: Episode one, Lincoln had said that what made a dictator
Speaker 1: a caesar or a Napoleon was the act of emancipating
Speaker 1: slaves or enslaving freemen. Gradually he had come to the
Speaker 1: view that that act, which was he said in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty eight, a fundamental violation of the principles of the Constitution,
Speaker 1: was permissible to him in wartime, because in wartime, and
Speaker 1: under the circumstance senses of the broken Constitution, he could
Speaker 1: then further break the Constitution in order to win the war.
Speaker 1: Lincoln first introduced this idea to his colleagues in the
Speaker 1: cabinet on July twenty second of eighteen sixty two, a
Speaker 1: year and several months after he had assumed the presidency.
Speaker 1: At the time, he still hoped that there would be
Speaker 1: some way to introduce compensated emancipation money to be paid
Speaker 1: to those people who were not disloyal and still had
Speaker 1: their slaves taken. When he introduced the idea to his cabinet,
Speaker 1: the cabinet was so shocked that it essentially reacted by
Speaker 1: telling him that emancipation would be a terrible mistake. From this,
Speaker 1: Lincoln realized that he needed to do more to introduce
Speaker 1: the idea of emancipation, not only to his cabinet, but
Speaker 1: to the country, which he knew would hold similar views
Speaker 1: to those of the cabinet. He spent the rest of
Speaker 1: the summer and the fall of eighteen sixty two gradually
Speaker 1: introducing ideas associated with emancipation into the public eye. The
Speaker 1: way he did that, seen in our terms, is not
Speaker 1: necessarily very appealing. Here, Lincoln the politician was not acting
Speaker 1: as Lincoln the moralist. An exemplary and dramatic moment in
Speaker 1: Lincoln's efforts to acclimate the country to the possibility of
Speaker 1: emancipation came in August of eighteen sixty two, when Lincoln
Speaker 1: held a meeting with a five member delegation of African
Speaker 1: Americans in the White House. The men he invited were
Speaker 1: part of the city's educated black elite. One Edward Thomas,
Speaker 1: the chairman of the delegation, was a member of one
Speaker 1: of the city's black debating societies, a collector of fine
Speaker 1: art and rare coins, and the proud owner of a
Speaker 1: library of six hundred books, an enormous library for the time.
Speaker 1: The others had similar elite status. Lincoln brought them into
Speaker 1: the White House, and instead of asking them what their
Speaker 1: views were about the possibility of emancipation, or how he
Speaker 1: should do things going forward, or really listening to them
Speaker 1: at all, Lincoln talked at them. And what he told
Speaker 1: them was nothing short of astonishing to our ears. What
Speaker 1: Lincoln told them had two parts. The first was that
Speaker 1: the long term solution to the problem of slavery was
Speaker 1: not merely to free black people, but for black people
Speaker 1: to voluntary leave the United States and be resettled somewhere else,
Speaker 1: either in Africa or in Central America, in circumstances where
Speaker 1: they would be far from white people and where the
Speaker 1: hatred that subsisted between the two races, according to Lincoln,
Speaker 1: would be resolved by effectively a kind of divorce. The
Speaker 1: delegation of African Americans listened with a stony silence, like
Speaker 1: essentially all African Americans, at the time and the overwhelming majority,
Speaker 1: since they had no interest in leaving the United States,
Speaker 1: they had no interest in participating in a plan to
Speaker 1: go to Liberia or somewhere else. That view had been
Speaker 1: a fantasy of white, anti slavery Americans of a certain
Speaker 1: kind all the way since the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: The idea, which was called colonization was the policy of
Speaker 1: a group of people who formed the American Colonization Society,
Speaker 1: a group of which James Monroe had been president and
Speaker 1: of which Henry Clay, the Great wig compromiser and Lincoln's idol,
Speaker 1: had been another leader. At no time was this view realistic,
Speaker 1: and at no time that it enjoys support from any
Speaker 1: number of African Americans. But certainly by eighteen sixty two
Speaker 1: the view was nothing more than a preposterous and frankly
Speaker 1: offensive fantasy. The reason Lincoln was talking to this group
Speaker 1: of African Americans about colonization was not that he expected
Speaker 1: them to listen to him. In fact, he wasn't really
Speaker 1: talking to that group at all. Lincoln was talking to
Speaker 1: white America, and he was trying to set up an
Speaker 1: argument that even if emancipation should occur, there was no
Speaker 1: need for white Americans to worry about any possibility of
Speaker 1: integration or living alongside African Americans towards whom he knew
Speaker 1: white people harbored intense racial prejudice. He was, in short,
Speaker 1: suggesting that it would be possible to emancipate without creating
Speaker 1: a race problem in the United States by sending all
Speaker 1: black people out of the country. The other thing that
Speaker 1: Lincoln told the assembled group of African American dignitaries was
Speaker 1: if it's possible. Even more shocking, here's what he said,
Speaker 1: but for your race among us, there could not be war,
Speaker 1: although many men engaged on either side do not care
Speaker 1: for you one way or the other. Nevertheless, I repeat,
Speaker 1: without the institution of slavery and the colored race as
Speaker 1: a basis, the war could not have an existence. That
Speaker 1: quotation is so astonishing that it may take a moment
Speaker 1: to explain it. In essence, what Lincoln was telling the
Speaker 1: black people in front of him was that the war
Speaker 1: was their fault. Instead of blaming the war on southern slavery,
Speaker 1: or Northern hypocrisy, or the inability of the compromise between
Speaker 1: North and South over slavery to subsist, Lincoln was saying
Speaker 1: that black people were themselves the but for cause of
Speaker 1: the war, and were therefore in some sense responsible for it.
Speaker 1: If you think that I'm making that up, listen to
Speaker 1: what Frederick Douglas said when he heard the reports of
Speaker 1: that conversation. Lincoln was showing all his inconsistencies, Douglas wrote,
Speaker 1: his pride of race and blood, his contempt for negroes,
Speaker 1: and his canting hypocrisy. How an honest man could creep
Speaker 1: into such a character as that implied by this address,
Speaker 1: we are not required to show. Douglas went on. He
Speaker 1: said that Lincoln was like a horse thief or a
Speaker 1: highway robber who was blaming his crime on the horse
Speaker 1: or the traveler's purse. No, mister President, Douglas said, it
Speaker 1: is not the innocent horse that makes the horse thief,
Speaker 1: not the traveler's purse that makes the highway robber. And
Speaker 1: it is not the presence of the negro that causes
Speaker 1: this foul and unnatural war, but the cruel and brutal
Speaker 1: cupidity of those who wish to possess horses, money, and
Speaker 1: negroes by means of theft, robbery, and rebellion. What was
Speaker 1: behind Lincoln's conversation with the African American delegation, however, was
Speaker 1: not to make a reasonable point. He was instead again
Speaker 1: trying to prepare the ground for the possibility of emancipation
Speaker 1: by convincing white Americans that he had no particular solicitude
Speaker 1: or care for black people. He was trying to make
Speaker 1: the argument that the reason to end slavery was to
Speaker 1: end the war and to end the controversy and conflict
Speaker 1: between Northern whites and Southern whites about the question of race.
Speaker 1: Did Lincoln mean everything he said? This is a question
Speaker 1: that still engages historians, and one again that I discuss
Speaker 1: in a great deal of detail in the book The
Speaker 1: Broken Constitution. I would say that on the whole my
Speaker 1: answer is yes. Listen to what Lincoln said in an
Speaker 1: open letter to Horace Greeley, the editor of the New
Speaker 1: York Tribune, just a week after he had spoken to
Speaker 1: the group of African Americans in his office. My paramount
Speaker 1: object in this struggle, Lincoln said, is to save the Union,
Speaker 1: and is not either to save or destroy slavery. His
Speaker 1: emphasis on those words, if I could save the Union
Speaker 1: without freeing any slave, I would do it. And if
Speaker 1: I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I
Speaker 1: would do it. And if I could save it by
Speaker 1: freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.
Speaker 1: What I do about slavery and the colored race, I
Speaker 1: do because I believe it helps to save the Union.
Speaker 1: And what I forbear, I forbear because I do not
Speaker 1: believe it would help to save the Union. There in
Speaker 1: a nutshell was Lincoln's public position about emancipation. On his
Speaker 1: way to September of eighteen sixty two, when he announced
Speaker 1: a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln was saying, in
Speaker 1: words too simple to mistake, that he did not want
Speaker 1: to base the decision to a man incipate at that
Speaker 1: moment on the immorality of slavery, but rather on the
Speaker 1: necessity of saving the Union. No doubt, Lincoln felt it
Speaker 1: necessary to speak this way in order to convince white
Speaker 1: Americans of the plausibility of emancipation, and also because he
Speaker 1: knew that he was breaking a constitutional compromise that had
Speaker 1: always been based on slavery. Nevertheless, if Lincoln had wanted
Speaker 1: to speak directly about the immorality of slavery itself as
Speaker 1: part of his act of emancipation, he could have done so.
Speaker 1: The Emancipation Proclamation evolved in the course of three versions
Speaker 1: of the document. The first was the one that Lincoln
Speaker 1: suggested to his cabinet in the summer of eighteen sixty two.
Speaker 1: The second was the preliminary declaration that Lincoln made public
Speaker 1: in September. The third and final one was the formal
Speaker 1: Emancipation Proclamation, into effect on January first of eighteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: In none of these did Lincoln expressly say that the
Speaker 1: point of emancipation was to end a moral wrong. Indeed,
Speaker 1: these documents were written in fairly legalistic tones. Karl Marx,
Speaker 1: a contemporary of Lincoln's, as we sometimes forget, who watched
Speaker 1: events in the United States with great interest, did consider
Speaker 1: the Emancipation Proclamation to be quote, the most important document
Speaker 1: in American history since the establishment of the Union, tantamount
Speaker 1: to the tearing up of the old American Constitution. Yet
Speaker 1: at the same time, Marx derided the language of the
Speaker 1: proclamation as devoid of morality. He said it had been
Speaker 1: intentionally drafted to sound like, quote, an ordinary summons sent
Speaker 1: by one lawyer to another. That was true of the
Speaker 1: body of the proclamation. The only place where Lincoln hinted, however,
Speaker 1: in the emancipation Proclamation at some potential moral purpose was
Speaker 1: in its final paragraph. There he wrote, and upon this act,
Speaker 1: sincerely believed to be an act of justice warranted by
Speaker 1: the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment
Speaker 1: of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. This
Speaker 1: paragraph did include a repetition of Lincoln's insistence that his
Speaker 1: act was justified by the Constitution because of the military
Speaker 1: necessity of doing so. In other words, that the reason
Speaker 1: emancipation was permissible under the Constitution, despite it being a
Speaker 1: breaking of the Constitution as it had always been understood before,
Speaker 1: was that there was a military necessity to do so.
Speaker 1: He needed to emancipate the slaves in order to win
Speaker 1: the war. And yet if that were the only reason,
Speaker 1: there would be no significant basis for Lincoln to invoke
Speaker 1: the judgment of mankind, much less the gracious favor of God.
Speaker 1: By thinking of the judgment of mankind, Lincoln was referring
Speaker 1: back to the Declaration of Independence, which had also appealed
Speaker 1: to the opinions of mankind and referred to a creator
Speaker 1: who endowed men with inalienable rights, including the right to liberty.
Speaker 1: Lincoln was suggesting to an international audience, not to the
Speaker 1: US audience, that there was value in the freeing of slaves. Similarly,
Speaker 1: by invoking God, Lincoln was hinting, but only hinting, that
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the ultimate judge of morality, there
Speaker 1: was good reason to free enslaved African Americans. By emancipating
Speaker 1: African American slaves, Lincoln fundamentally changed the possible outcomes of
Speaker 1: the war, and in the process, he fundamentally transformed the
Speaker 1: meaning of the Constitution. That was because by doing so,
Speaker 1: Lincoln blocked once and for all, any possibility of return
Speaker 1: to a constitution based on compromise. The compromise constitution had
Speaker 1: always been a compromise based on slavery. By announcing that
Speaker 1: enslaved people in the South would not be returned to
Speaker 1: their owners when the war was over, by announcing that
Speaker 1: there would not be slavery in the South when the
Speaker 1: war was over, Lincoln was guaranteeing that there would not
Speaker 1: be the possibility of future compromise, at least if he
Speaker 1: were re elected president. He knew that he might lose
Speaker 1: the presidential election in eighteen sixty four, and if that happened,
Speaker 1: He realized a new president might reoffer some version of
Speaker 1: a compromise to the South, but as long as he
Speaker 1: was president, he was insisting there would not be a
Speaker 1: compromise by this Emancipation Act. Therefore, Lincoln broke any possibility
Speaker 1: of return to the Constitution of seventeen eighty seven, as
Speaker 1: it had been shored up and rebuilt by a series
Speaker 1: of quasi constitutional compromises in the year before the war.
Speaker 1: He was taking slavery off the table. In so doing,
Speaker 1: Lincoln was also opening up a new possibility, one we
Speaker 1: are familiar with today, but that had not existed before.
Speaker 1: That was the idea of the Constitution as a constitution
Speaker 1: genuinely in keeping with morality, a moral constitution that could
Speaker 1: itself be considered a higher law. The Constitution had never
Speaker 1: been considered a moral document in the years before the
Speaker 1: Civil War because it entailed a compromise with slavery. Even
Speaker 1: those who like Lincoln believed there was a moral duty
Speaker 1: to follow the Constitution believed that that flowed from a
Speaker 1: promise that had been made to follow it, not from
Speaker 1: the morality of the Constitution itself, which was a compromise
Speaker 1: with immorality. But if the Constitution would no longer be
Speaker 1: a compromise over slavery. Then it could be a moral document.
Speaker 1: It could be a moral document based on the principle
Speaker 1: of liberty for all, and by implication, also based on
Speaker 1: the principle of equality. Liberty and equality were moral concepts.
Speaker 1: Compromise was a concept that was at best a moral
Speaker 1: and at worst immoral to the extent it entailed an
Speaker 1: agreement to preserve slavery. The Gettysburg Address is the archetypal
Speaker 1: moment when Lincoln introduced this idea to the United States.
Speaker 1: He gave it on November nineteenth, eighteen sixty three, and
Speaker 1: already in its first sentence, Lincoln spoke of a new
Speaker 1: nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that
Speaker 1: all men are created equal. The nation was new because
Speaker 1: the Constitution of seventeen eighty seven was gone. This new
Speaker 1: nation was conceived in liberty, which could never be said
Speaker 1: of the Constitution of seventeen eighty seven because it entailed
Speaker 1: a compromise over liberty by assuring the continuation of the
Speaker 1: enslavement of African Americans and the core proposition that all
Speaker 1: men are created equal, though it existed in the Declaration
Speaker 1: of Independence, had not been morally present in the Constitution
Speaker 1: because it had explicitly excluded people of color. In the
Speaker 1: course of the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's introduction of the idea
Speaker 1: of morality started to take on biblical overtones. You can
Speaker 1: hear that in some of the language of the address
Speaker 1: four score and seven years ago a formulation hinting at
Speaker 1: the Bible shall not perish from the earth more language
Speaker 1: from the Bible. But Lincoln's religious description of the meaning
Speaker 1: of the end of slavery came most famously in his
Speaker 1: second inaugural address, which he gave on March fourth of
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five. In that famous address, Lincoln offered nothing
Speaker 1: less than a theology of slavery and what it meant
Speaker 1: in America. According to that theology, slavery was an offense
Speaker 1: against God, an original sin, and that sin had been
Speaker 1: purged or atoned only through the violence and bloodshed of
Speaker 1: the Civil War. He said, if we shall suppose that
Speaker 1: American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the
Speaker 1: providence of God must needs come, but which having continued
Speaker 1: through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and
Speaker 1: that he gives to both north and South. This terrible war,
Speaker 1: as the woe due to those by whom the offense came,
Speaker 1: shall we scern therein any departure from those divine attributes
Speaker 1: which the believers in a living God always ascribed to him.
Speaker 1: Lincoln was saying that the war had been inevitable, inevitable
Speaker 1: because of the slavery compromise, which itself was a sin. Thus,
Speaker 1: he said, the war might continue until all the wealth
Speaker 1: piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of
Speaker 1: unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of
Speaker 1: blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another
Speaker 1: drawn with the sword. The blood of slavery would be
Speaker 1: repaid by the blood of the Northern and Southern dead.
Speaker 1: Through this atonement, an atonement that would have been familiar
Speaker 1: to Americans of the time as the model of Christ's
Speaker 1: sacrifice of his own blood to atone for original sin,
Speaker 1: the United States could be healed. The result would be
Speaker 1: a new Constitution that stood in relationship to the Old Constitution,
Speaker 1: the way the New Testament stood in relationship to the Old.
Speaker 1: Lots of scholars have talked about the difficulty that Lincoln
Speaker 1: faced in his personal life. The death of his son
Speaker 1: and as well the pain of seeing so many human
Speaker 1: deaths on both sides of the war. But the truth
Speaker 1: is that the most obvious explanation for Lincoln's turn to
Speaker 1: religious language at the end of the war has to
Speaker 1: do with his turn to the idea that the Constitution
Speaker 1: could be remade into something newly moral. For nineteenth century Americans,
Speaker 1: the fundamental language of morality was the language of religion. Thus,
Speaker 1: by the emancipation of slaves, Lincoln changed the meaning of
Speaker 1: the war itself from being a war for union to
Speaker 1: being a war to end slavery. No longer would union
Speaker 1: be grounded and compromised. Instead, union would be grounded in
Speaker 1: a coercive military solution that ended slavery and assumed a
Speaker 1: constitution that would ultimately be based on equality. Lincoln lived
Speaker 1: to see the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery.
Speaker 1: He did not live to see the ratification of the
Speaker 1: Fourteenth Amendment, with its guarantee of equal protection, nor the
Speaker 1: fifteenth with its enfranchisement of African Americans. But that did
Speaker 1: not matter from the standpoint of the transformative effect that
Speaker 1: Lincoln's actions had had on the Constitution. Once slavery was ended,
Speaker 1: which Lincoln had done even without a constitutional amendment, at
Speaker 1: least with respect to the South. He had fundamentally transformed
Speaker 1: the constitutional order into something new. He had refounded America
Speaker 1: on new principles, moral prin principles of freedom, and principles
Speaker 1: of equality. His historical contribution would be permanent. Before I
Speaker 1: end this episode, though, I want to point out that
Speaker 1: although nothing could be neater than to end the story
Speaker 1: of Lincoln and the Broken Constitution with its transformation into
Speaker 1: a new moral constitution via the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth Amendments,
Speaker 1: the sad truth is that the planned effort to remake
Speaker 1: the Constitution into something moral did not ultimately go as
Speaker 1: Lincoln had hoped, And indeed, some of the reason for
Speaker 1: that may simply have to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: neither Lincoln nor anyone else had a detailed vision of
Speaker 1: how a constitution that was based on moral principles of
Speaker 1: equality and freedom could actually work in practice. As you
Speaker 1: may recall from Episode one, General Winfield's Scott had told
Speaker 1: Lincoln before the war began that if the North did
Speaker 1: manage to conquer the South, it would have to rule
Speaker 1: the South the way an imperial power ruled unruly colonies.
Speaker 1: It would have to have an army of occupation, and
Speaker 1: it would have to force its own control and power
Speaker 1: onto the South. When field Scott thought that would be
Speaker 1: very difficult or impossible to do, as it happened, that
Speaker 1: is exactly what the North had to do when the
Speaker 1: war ended. Reconstruction is the name for the military occupation
Speaker 1: and the effort of social transformation that was initially undertaken
Speaker 1: by the North, and that was then co participated in
Speaker 1: by freed African Americans in the South who nobly and
Speaker 1: by their own efforts, undertook to enfranchise themselves, to participate
Speaker 1: in politics and to remake the society in which they lived.
Speaker 1: Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's vice president, was very skeptical of Reconstruction
Speaker 1: from the start and tried hard not to implement its provisions. That,
Speaker 1: in fact, was one of the reasons that he was
Speaker 1: ultimately impeached, though not convicted by the Senate. Johnson, however,
Speaker 1: was replaced ultimately by Ulysses S. Grant, and Grant did
Speaker 1: much more than Johnson had done to work with the
Speaker 1: Republican Congress to impose Reconstruction on the South. The South, however,
Speaker 1: and by that I mean, the White South resisted with
Speaker 1: everything that it had. It fought a military insurgency characterized
Speaker 1: by paramilitary guerrilla groups like the Ku Klux Klan. White
Speaker 1: Southerners fought hard to resist the idea of African American
Speaker 1: equality and enfranchisement in the social sphere, in the economic sphere,
Speaker 1: and in the political sphere, and ultimately, over the course
Speaker 1: of the first half of the eighteen seventies, white Northerners
Speaker 1: lost the political moment to keep reconstruction going. The analogies
Speaker 1: to American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are actually strong.
Speaker 1: The United States may imagine that it can transform a
Speaker 1: society entirely in the course of a military occupation, but
Speaker 1: when it turns out to be difficult, expensive, and time consuming,
Speaker 1: and when it turns out that many local people resist transformation,
Speaker 1: eventually the United States is capable of running out of
Speaker 1: steam on some level. That is the best account of
Speaker 1: how Reconstruction ultimately failed. It wasn't that Southern African Americans
Speaker 1: gave up their efforts to the contrary. They never stopped.
Speaker 1: It was that white Northerners lost the political will and
Speaker 1: the incentive to continue to try to impose social transformation,
Speaker 1: economic transformation, and political transformation on white Southerners. The result
Speaker 1: was the tragedy of what is sometimes called the Compromise
Speaker 1: of eighteen seventy six or the Great Betrayal. This was
Speaker 1: a process that emerged from the disputed eighteen seventy six
Speaker 1: constitutional election, which produced a special commission and a set
Speaker 1: of agreements that effectively embraced the reality of the collapse
Speaker 1: of Reconstruction. To oversimplify significantly, the Republican Party, speaking on
Speaker 1: behalf of northern whites, reached a compromise with the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: which incorporated southern whites, to end Reconstruction and to allow
Speaker 1: the re emergence of a system of white domination in
Speaker 1: the South, a system based on segregation and disenfranchisement. To
Speaker 1: get there, the Supreme Court had to bless and validate
Speaker 1: laws that effectively repudiated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Segregation
Speaker 1: the principle of separate but equal will violated the Fourteenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: but the Supreme Court pretended otherwise in the tragically awful
Speaker 1: case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Similarly, laws designed to block
Speaker 1: African Americans from voting were systematically upheld by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Lincoln's promise of a moral Constitution was betrayed, because although
Speaker 1: the Moral Constitution remained on paper, it was effectively a
Speaker 1: dead letter until the Civil Rights movement and Brown against
Speaker 1: the Board of Education. What happened after the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: repudiated the idea of separate but equal in the Brown versus.
Speaker 1: The Board decision in nineteen fifty four was the beginning
Speaker 1: of a process of constitutional redemption. The redemption here was
Speaker 1: not redemption of the original Constitution of seventeen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: but of Lincoln's Moral Constitution, the constitution embodied in their
Speaker 1: reconstruction amendments. The Supreme Court itself played a role an
Speaker 1: important role by saying that separate could never be equal,
Speaker 1: but the primary role was played by the Civil rights movement,
Speaker 1: by African Americans, who, in the decade following Brown versus.
Speaker 1: Board of Education, engaged in civil disobedience, in sit ins,
Speaker 1: in nonviolent resistance, and in the whole series of dramatic
Speaker 1: and heroic undertakings that ultimately led Congress to adopt the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four and the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act of nineteen sixty five. In this process, Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King Junior emerged as in a sense, the second Lincoln,
Speaker 1: someone who stood from the moral Constitution, not from the
Speaker 1: standpoint in this case of a government itself, but from
Speaker 1: the standpoint of the people, and in particular of African Americans,
Speaker 1: who had been oppressed. The institution of morality and equality
Speaker 1: was therefore redeemed not by the conferral of a decision
Speaker 1: from above, like Lincoln the dictator, but rather by the
Speaker 1: actions of the people who were entitled to the very
Speaker 1: rights that they were guaranteed under that constitutional order. It
Speaker 1: was no coincidence that the iconic moment of Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King's career took place at the March on Washington. Standing
Speaker 1: in front of the Lincoln memorial. King was becoming a
Speaker 1: second Lincoln, and because ultimately King was assassinated just as
Speaker 1: Lincoln had been, the two men became linked as martyrs
Speaker 1: of the new and moral Constitution. King's explicitly religious identity
Speaker 1: as a minister played an important role in solidifying and
Speaker 1: expanding Lincoln's theology of the Civil War. The blood of
Speaker 1: the Civil War had atoned for original sin, but it
Speaker 1: was the efforts of African Americans and King's own sacrifice
Speaker 1: that redeemed Lincoln's Constitution from the betrayal it had undergone
Speaker 1: in the years after the abandonment of reconstruction. Today, of course,
Speaker 1: we know that that redeemed Constitution, with its moral principles
Speaker 1: of equality and liberty, is not perfectly achieved. Everyone on
Speaker 1: the American political spectrum today embraces in principle Lincoln's Constitution.
Speaker 1: Everyone therefore should recognize today that we do not have
Speaker 1: the Constitution of seventeen eighty seven, but we do have
Speaker 1: the constitution that Abraham Lincoln brought into existence with emancipation
Speaker 1: on January first, eighteen sixty three. At the same time,
Speaker 1: we need to recognize that a written constitution embedding the
Speaker 1: principles of a quality and liberty does not on its
Speaker 1: own bring those moral principles into existence. We still have
Speaker 1: persistent inequality in the United States, including inequality before the
Speaker 1: law of the kind that the moral constitution prohibits. The
Speaker 1: truth is that a moral constitution, like all constitutions, is
Speaker 1: not an end state. It's a promise of an ongoing effort.
Speaker 1: Through our moral constitution, we define our national project, but
Speaker 1: we can never fully achieve it. Lincoln's ultimate legacy, then
Speaker 1: is not the accomplishment of a genuinely moral constitution. It
Speaker 1: is rather his act of breaking the compromise constitution and
Speaker 1: the hope and the promise of a moral constitution that
Speaker 1: will always be in the process of being redeemed. If
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode of The Broken Constitution podcast, I
Speaker 1: can tell you with a great deal of certainty that
Speaker 1: you're also going to enjoy the book itself, The Broken Constitution, Lincoln,
Speaker 1: Slavery and the Refounding of America, will be out now.
Speaker 1: Please enjoy reading it, and if you have thoughts or ideas,
Speaker 1: I hope you will write to me about what you think.
Speaker 1: The point of this book is to create a conversation,
Speaker 1: and you, the listener of this podcast, are one of
Speaker 1: the people from whom I wish to hear. The Broken
Speaker 1: Constitution was produced by Nathan Sims and Quick and Dirty Tips,
Speaker 1: a proud part of McMillan Publishers Home far Oar Straus
Speaker 1: and Drew, who are publishing my book