Abraham Lincoln’s Political Philosophy with Lucas Morel | BRI Scholar Talks

0:00 presidents have certain uh objectives certain roles that they play not as specifically defined as congress to be sure but certain roles and lincoln sought what um sought to justify it publicly according to the constitution so he saw that as not optional but essential that rulers justify what they’re doing

0:21 according to the fundamental law of the land which is the consent it expresses the content of the people at large hi this is tony williams senior fellow with the bill of rights institute and we are pleased to bring you another episode of scholar talks for this episode we are very honored to have a distinguished scholar

0:42 and a friend of mine lucas morell who is going to speak about his new book which is called lincoln and the american founding professor lucas morrell is a professor of politics at washington and lee university he also teaches at the master’s program at ashland university in ohio and

1:05 at several different high school teacher workshops including many bri programs he is the author of lincoln’s sacred effort defining religion’s role in american self-government editor of lincoln and liberty wisdom for the ages and an editor of several fine books on

1:25 ralph ellison his most recent book is lincoln and the american founding and is the subject of today’s discussion lucas thank you for joining us thanks uh for inviting me tony great well before we get started i you know i just really want to uh sing the praises of this book you know i i i really love this book for for a

1:46 number of reasons and and i’ll share with you just two of them one is you know in an age where so many 900 page tomes are being published and definitive biographies magisterial books you’ve taken a really important subject and condense it down to what about 125 pages or so and

2:08 and it’s readable and and it’s engaging and you can read it you know in a day if you sit down and and provide a little time for for amusing about all the great ideas in this book uh but it’s a wonderfully brief um examination of the topic and and and that’s meant very much as a compliment and and the

2:28 other thing that i think is so important about this book uh is yes it’s about lincoln’s political philosophy it’s about his relationship in the ideas of the founders as well as a bit of statesmanship as we’ll explore and and yet is also a civics lesson

2:50 right i i thought that that was the best part of uh reading this book personally is that i thought you know as any citizen and any person walking away uh you know a teacher or a student but or or an average citizen walking away from this book would would know just a lot more about not only the the principles of the

3:13 american regime but you know what it means to be an american right and and as there’s so many debates today about all these things uh it really lends a voice uh to that subject at a really important time i think in our history so so thank you for this really fine book well i appreciate that i mean that’s a

3:34 better introduction to the book than i could probably offer if you gave me five minutes to prepare um i i am glad that you saw that it wasn’t just a book about theory even though i think it was a written fairly in a fairly accessible way but it’s intended for the lay reader who has an interest in old things old things like lincoln

3:55 and even older ones like the founding but this series by southern illinois university press it’s called the concise lincoln library series it was intended to be written by believe it or not academics who could speak plain english and and give the latest scholarship but from their particular uh vantage point on a niche is probably

4:16 too narrow but on a specific aspect of i think are arguably the most iconic president that we’ve ever had even more than george washington um and so the a quick genesis of the book they asked me for a different book they uh emailed me and i had never spoken with them they said hey we want you to do a book

4:36 on lincoln and civil rights and i said you know i’ve been teaching looking for a long time that’s kind of not my thing in other words we talk about civil rights but but for lincoln there was something more important and i said would you would you consider a book for your series on lincoln and the american founding and they said oh what’s that let’s talk and that’s what led to the book so i had

4:57 the the spa of uh daring to say well not your plan a but how about this plan b and they were fantastic to work with so the the series is intended to have books that are short accessible but scholarly and even though they said it was scholarly they really limited what we could put in the

5:17 footnotes and so i i was like lopping off limbs like the book was actually much longer than it is and a good portion of that were you know as you know academics have the conversation and arguments in the footnotes mostly not entirely and i had a lot in the footnotes and i just had to chop those out to make chapters off to make word content so as

5:39 somebody word count that somebody told me they said look this is is a it’s a primer or a primer on the subject you don’t have to say everything lucas so the person who reads this book should want to go read more about lincoln on slavery or the constitution or the declaration or washington or original intention the the main chapters of my book

6:00 and so with that nudge i started chop chop chopping away and that’s how we got it to 120 some odd pages right well it’s always great to have the back story really really interesting and uh you’re right i was gonna say it’s part as you mentioned part of just a remarkable series i have several volumes myself on on the shelves i’m looking at and uh

6:20 i’d i’d start with with your book uh but then and then advise our viewers to to pick up a few more uh volumes because they’re really quite good excellent all right well how about we start the interview then so um so your wonderful new book focuses really on lincoln’s political philosophy as we’ve said and how is rooted in the the natural

6:41 rights principles and and constitutional self-governance of the founders can you briefly explain those principles of a free society uh for our viewers by way of introduction sure and i’m sure we’re gonna i’ll sound repetitive as we go on because as we’ll see i will go back to the same things because lincoln goes back to the same things and fundamentally for him

7:03 uh the great question in the 1850s what we call the antebellum period right up to the civil war was how americans ought to understand the purpose of their regime and in light of that what the founders thought the purpose of the regime was what did they think they were doing when they you know declared and fought for and secured independence from great

7:25 britain was it simply to throw off tyranny um or or what was supposed to replace it and so what lincoln believed was central to the regime was something he found at in the year of our birth which was he dated to july 4th 1776 the day we explained to ourselves and

7:46 the world why we were taking the steps that we were here we were people already at war with great britain for over a year and we finally formally decided on july 2nd to resolve to be uh independent in three states uh and then two days later we explained what all that entailed so lincoln found uh encapsulated in the declaration

8:08 of independence a few key principles for ideals that were essential to the foundation and operation of a free self-governing society number one and for him it was the central idea of america is the idea of human equality the great statement all men are created equal uh but of course that

8:30 invites the question equal in what way um i know you fairly well tony and you are not a small man you are taller than i am so we’re clearly did the founders talk about stature is equality and beauty equality and intelligence what what are what do we mean when we say all men are created equal well part of that um is equality in the

8:50 natural possession of rights what we call or sum up as individual rights what the declaration sums up as right among which are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness so the idea of equality uh human equality the idea of the rights of the natural rights of every individual that you possess these regardless of

9:12 what government does these are things that you possess simply by being human and then third i would add um that the declaration says in a way as a result of human equality and the equal possession of rights is that nobody is born the natural ruler of anybody else and therefore if any person or persons

9:33 decide to tell somebody else what to do and punish them if they don’t um you have to get their their permission first the declaration calls government by consent of the governed so equality individual rights and consent i think are uh are the the the key principles that lincoln drew from the declaration that

9:53 he drew from the founders and i think um you don’t have to read long in lincoln to see those as central to his way of thinking about the american regime right and so while your book is about these political ideas these ideals lincoln’s ideals seem

10:15 really inextricably linked in many ways to his virtuous statesmanship right of prudence of moderation of restraint and and you know those virtues definitely come out in the book as you talk about you know his presidency and his statesmanship yeah so now we’re moving as it were from the realm of of

10:36 abstraction right we’re moving from ideas and principles to well how does this thing actually work in practice okay so what what what does this look like in practice whether it’s the machinery of government itself principally the constitution or the actual exercise of political authority by the rulers themselves and so for me it’s no surprise that

10:56 when you get lincoln actually into power as president you have someone who and this is a debatable point uh uh to be sure uh but someone who at least in his own understanding is operating within the constraints of the fundamental consent of the american people and that’s not elections that’s their constitution okay uh and the constitution actually

11:18 superintends elections and it’s supposed to superintend or channel uh or restrain the exercise of authority now it’s it’s counterintuitive i like the way you put it it’s counterintuitive to think of the exercise of power as something that’s a restraint or a limiting or moderating thing uh but lincoln thought uh he understood that what the founders

11:38 put into motion constitutionally was precisely a form of government or if you will forms because it’s at the state as well as the national or federal level they actually intended to channel political power in such a way that it would not be abused regardless of who was in power

11:59 okay and so lincoln as president at a time of national crisis of course exercised power in a way that at least he thought was um uh limited by what the what the authority of the american people gave him not just by election but by the constitution so what a power

12:19 what power did he have under article two of the constitution for example just name just to mention one uh uh perhaps the most obvious example is what lincoln did with regards to slavery during a time of war it was different than what he did when we were not at war which admittedly was not very long when he became president but for a year for a month and a half

12:40 and as he set out in his first inauguration speech you know he said that there was very little that the federal government could do about slavery where it existed but he did get elected on a platform which had a plank that said the republicans believe that slavery should not expand that we should try to curtail it to where it was and therefore

13:00 in hopes that it would wither on the vine as it were and that’s a longer conversation we can have but the republicans were definitely at odds with the democrats on this question because the democrats either wanted it to expand into future states i.e the current federal territories or they were indifferent right and the greatest temptation was the indifference camp and that was led

13:22 by his longtime rival his illinois nemesis uh senator stephen a douglas the chair until buchanan kicked him off uh over the compton constitution uh the chair of the committee on territories so stephen douglas had the don’t care policy which is to say that the congress shouldn’t care what local populations local white populations do regarding slavery in territories it’s

13:44 none of congress’s business okay uh as long as they put it to a vote that’s the american way for douglas the american way wasn’t human equality the american way in his mind the founders way was um local popular sovereignty let the people decide as he put it and he meant not congress the people at

14:05 the national level he meant the people at the local level whether state or territory and so that argument between lincoln and the democrats those two branches of the democratic party the dem the douglas branch and ultimately the breckenridge branch um that gave rise to an understanding of the constitution what does the

14:26 constitution empower our rulers to do and lincoln thought that applying wisdom right prudence politically for the good of the whole he said when it came to slavery there was only so much a president could do and very little in fact in a time of peace in a time of war he thought hmm as a fit and necessary

14:47 war measure as the emancipation proclamation put it uh you know and in a time of actual rebellion and you know at a certain time in the war when it was became necessary to draw upon what frederick douglass called the sable arm lincoln thought okay in order for this to be constitutionally permissible because

15:08 presidents can’t touch your property ordinarily but in a time of war for a particular constitutional end he had to turn a humanitarian aim freedom liberty to three or four million black americans he had to turn that into a constitutional means for it to be

15:29 legitimate and that was very debatable at the time when he did it republicans lost in the fall elections of 1863 something we would think oh it’s a slam dunk of course you emancipate at the time it was it was tenuous constitutionally whether a president could do this and you know he paid the price or at least his party prayed paid the price in the fall of 63 and um

15:52 the dissenter in one of the two dissenters in the dred scott opinion of 1857 benjamin curtis a new englander guy from massachusetts no friend of the south he actually published a pamphlet 80 some odd page pamphlet called executive power where he criticized lincoln for you know trying to civilians and military

16:14 tribunals and for issuing an emancipation proclamation so you have a guy who’s one of the two dissenters in dred scott who still thought what lincoln did with the emancipation was not constitutionally proper but lincoln as he made his way towards emancipation to bring this to a close he thought that the only way he could do

16:35 it is if he could find a way in the constitution that would allow him to do so and he ultimately interpreted his war powers and that phrase actually doesn’t exist in the in the second article of constitution but generally speaking the powers of commander in chief as well as his oath to preserve protect and defend the constitution he took uh he took

16:55 undebatable of um duty of president preserved the union and used a means emancipation of slaves in rebellious territory towards that end and that was the best justification that he could find for it uh but he could only do it if in his own

17:15 mind and conscience and before the american people say these are the reasons why i did it and he did it in a way i say and i would argue um that pointed to them that he didn’t believe he just had uh um you know all the plenary authority to do whatever he wants go do good no no no presidents have certain uh objectives certain roles that they

17:37 play not as specifically defined as congress to be sure but certain roles and lincoln sought what um sought to justify it publicly according to the constitution so he saw that as not optional but essential that rulers justify what they’re doing according to the fundamental law of the land which is the consent it expresses

17:57 the content of the people at large excellent all right well let’s step back maybe a little bit in time here so lincoln’s early political thinking although it stayed with him his thinking about the founding was was really about preserving the rule of law through what he called sober reason

18:19 ordered liberty uh rather than the passions of of the mob and mob rule so you know why is this important early on in the development of his political constitutional thought yeah that’s an excellent question a perceptive one because it’s not something we talk a lot about we we don’t read a lot about it but the

18:39 importance of means and ends and i’ve given you already an example of how lincoln sought to connect those two the founders thought the same uh in a way that the american way of political life um has to see that the the the means if not as important as the ends are are a really close second how we achieve our aims the common good

19:00 specifically the protection of individual rights how do how we secure justice is as important as the justice itself i mean that was the big the question about slavery is not so much that did did slaves deserve to be free yes uh almost everybody believed that at the time of the founding even though we were surrounded by slaves if you will the question was

19:20 how how do we accomplish this and the example was set by washington washington who wanted that to happen but said it had to be the product of laws it couldn’t be the product of if you will the underground railroad even though uh i believe there is some evidence to that shows that washington did free uh a slave or two

19:40 when he was it was either new york or philadelphia i believe it was in philadelphia where he quietly allowed uh a slaver to to stay and definitely not public um it was not something he would encourage um and again that’s that’s a whole subject for a whole other uh conversation um but but the idea here is that

20:04 how to put this uh the american way of political life has to be a way where the means we adopt have to be consistent with its ends okay and what is the fundamental means um if the end is securing people’s rights the means are by consent so the question is what does it mean to be ruled by consent

20:25 when we think of consent today we you’ll hear you know stuff like oh government needs to be transparent government needs to be accountable it’s the people determining who their rulers are and if the rulers don’t do a good job they can kick them out if they do a great job they can keep them in power but i think something more fundamental is at stake and what that fundamental thing is is to rule yourself by consent or for

20:49 community to rule itself by consent is to agree ahead of time that the only good rule is reasonable rule it’s not mere self-determination okay it is uh if it was just that then then majority rule would be it popular sovereignty stephen douglas and that whatever the majority says goes

21:10 right the voice of ox popular vox dei the voice of the people is the voice of god and you know what about the rights of the minority so the idea is that consent is really the enshrinement of the understanding that we ought to rule ourselves according to our reason um to rule by consent is to submit myself to constitutional rule

21:32 that we don’t rush to exercising political authority that it happened as a result of a deliberate if you will slow in mediated process that’s why we have separation of powers that’s why we have staggered elections and so to rule ourselves by consent is to rule ourselves by reason rather than by passion the the emotions of the

21:52 moment those things can turn us into a mindless mob even though individually we’re sensible people uh so so the idea of consent as is conducive of reasonable rule right this is how the means of constitutional self-government are most conducive of his

22:13 ends and when we’re not ruling ourselves deliberately rationally when we are given to emotion and a desire for swift justice hasty justice we’re not as likely to achieve our end in um in that particular uh situation and so i think um no time like

22:34 the present for us to remind ourselves that rule of consent or the rule of law right order uh the rule of law and order sometimes stated pejoratively that the rule of law is not a is not an optional thing it is essential uh it was essential as lincoln understood he how how important was it

22:54 uh he called it political religion in 1838 right in his early years in the state legislature uh in in a speech called on the perpetuation of our political institutions he says we have got to practice this as if it was a religion it doesn’t replace revealed religion but it’s its own peculiar american civic religion uh whereby we look at the laws

23:18 and the constitution with the kind of reverence you would look at certain religious documents if you will right right and uh speaking of those important documents he lincoln said that the declaration of independence was the standard maxim of a free society he said it contained the definitions and

23:38 axioms of a free society and uh poetically the the electric chord linking together the hearts of patriots and so why is the declaration so central to lincoln’s political thinking um simply put it’s so central because he believes it encapsulated the key principles

24:01 that founded our way of government and that set forth how we should operate justly and legitimately if he had to boil it down to one of those principles it would be human equality he said that public opinion in this country radiates you typically radiates from one central

24:23 idea and he said the central idea of america this would be the the jeopardy uh answer although those answers are formed as a question uh what is human equality right the central idea of america so that’s the jeopardy question what is human equality lincoln uh this was so central to lincoln because he thought look to the extent we depart from the

24:44 principle of human equality to that extent we are no longer operating uh democratically or as as republican small are how else to put this uh any time you how do you know if you’re doing this you’re doing this if you make an exception

25:05 to humanity so if you do it on the basis of religion catholics don’t have all their rights protected or if you do it on the basis of race or ethnicity black people don’t have all their rights protected or only have those rights that white people want to give them but what they can give they can also take away that was stephen douglas’s view he said oh no no we’re i’m not saying that

25:26 blacks don’t have rights but i am saying is it’s up to the majority of white people to determine what those are and in new york they’ll get some that they don’t get in in illinois and in illinois they’ll definitely get some that they definitely don’t get down in alabama or mississippi so lincoln said anytime we make an exception look at what we’re doing it’s not just bad for black people when

25:47 we enslave them or allow their enslavement what we are actually teaching ourselves royal we here white people as white people if we were to continue to do this what we’re actually teaching ourselves is government doesn’t exist to secure the rights of the citizenry what

26:07 government is is simply a lever a tool for whatever political majority happens to exist gets at the expense of the minority and lincoln says the fact that we’re doing it against blacks and have been doing it for so long when is it gonna we’ll turn around and start doing this to catholics and when are we gonna start doing it to immigrants right he says and ultimately

26:29 it won’t matter what the color of skin you are people will learn whoa what is the important thing to be in the political majority and i think if if we get back to the idea that all men are created equal something as simple but as profound as that then i think that would be the the stepping stone the first one

26:50 towards our recovering a common understanding of governing a very diverse people and and let’s dial in on on that a little bit more right this this equality principle and and the contradiction of slavery i mean the founders in lincoln had to deal with this problem of slavery

27:11 that contradict the ideals of the american regime and i i know it’s a big subject right very complex but what was their view lincoln and the founders what were their views and policies related to slavery and how did they attempt to restrict that moral stain of slavery on the

27:32 american regime okay well that second part uh some people would disagree with i i don’t disagree with it but some some people and it’s becoming unfortunately increasingly popular for people to think that the founders didn’t think slavery was a stain didn’t think it was as people call it today an original sin i don’t call it an original sin i call it a pre-existing condition okay uh slavery was not introduced by

27:54 the american founders it was a long-standing unfortunately racial chiefly racial institution that dates back even further than 1619 believe it or not um because it had been in this country for so long and associated with a particular race of people uh it became uh intractable

28:15 at the time of our attempt to govern ourselves to secure our independence from this global power great britain um it was it was something as i put it to my students we were unable in 1776 through 1783 unable to free attempt to free ourselves and free american slaves at the same time uh and here’s here’s a a quote that’s so

28:38 good that i dug it up in anticipation of something along these lines in 1858 lincoln had to explain to illinoisians for the most part care less about black people he was trying to explain how is it what kind of attitude should we have towards this institution that’s still around does that mean we like it that does that mean we want it to spread and lincoln defending the republicans was explaining

28:59 no we don’t want it to spread but here is why it still exists he says we had slaves among us at the time of the founding we could not get our constitution unless we let them remain in slavery we could not secure the good we did secure if we grasped for more and having by

29:19 necessity hold on to that word submitted to that much it does not destroy the principle that is the charter of our liberties let that charter remain as our standard so translation and lincoln speaks plain english i don’t know that i have to explain this but the translation is lincoln said the time of the founding they understood slavery

29:40 to be two things evil but necessary what do we mean by necessary did we have to have it no by necessary what he meant it was in it was too difficult to get rid of right away but just because it’s too difficult to get rid of right away you don’t pretend that it’s not a bad thing okay he once used the example of you know

30:01 coming to your kid your baby in a crib and finding that there’s a snake there coiled up around and adjacent to the baby you don’t suddenly thrust your hand in and grab the snake although you’d be tempted to do so it’s your baby and pull it out because in the process of trying to grab the snake the snake might strike your baby and so you’ve got to

30:22 deal with the situation carefully okay so if i don’t pull the snake out right away does that mean i should introduce snakes into everybody’s cribs am i saying that i enjoy slaves as snakes sleeping with my kid no but i have to deal with the matter carefully and lincoln thought the founders wanted to deal with the

30:42 matter carefully so how did they indicate that that slaver was wrong besides many statements public and in correspondence uh along these lines and you get it from all the the major founders washington madison jefferson all slave owners all thought it was evil okay so what did they do

31:02 they did two things having to do with the supply of slavery and its expansion in terms of its expansion the only territory owned at the time by the american people at large was the northwest territory and so the articles of confederation in congress and the first congress under the constitution passed what’s known as the northwest ordinance article six said

31:23 no slavery in this territory so that was their decision at the at the outset we’re a republic for crying out loud slavery is the massive contradiction lincoln called it the great behemoth of danger and so we’ve got slavery we’ve got to let the slave the states deal with it six of the original 13

31:43 get rid of it gradually vermont the 14th comes in with an anti-slavery constitution it’s clear they think slavery is wrong they don’t want it to expand well what about the supply the earliest and this was a compromise in the constitution the earliest they could prevent the importation of slaves was january 1st 1808 the constitution doesn’t mandate it it

32:03 doesn’t say congress has to ban slavery it just says that’s the earliest they could do it well guess what a slave holder by the name of thomas jefferson was president a year before 1808 and in march i think february or march he signs a bill banning the importation of slaves into the united states to take effect as soon as constitutionally permissible

32:24 january 1 1808 to put more teeth into that bite uh of that law in 1820 it is equated with piracy and the only punishment for piracy is capital punishment hanged by the neck until dead as they like to say and so the founders in the early years lincoln pointed out frequently

32:45 especially in the late 1850s they put their stamp of disapproval just a approval on slavery by saying no more slaves can come in and we will execute you if we catch you trying to do it lincoln is the only present uh president to hang a man nathaniel

33:07 gordon for violating that 1808 1820 those laws uh he does so famously in february um even when people were petitioning to uh extend the person’s prison term to life in prison lincoln said nope i’m going to make an example of this guy and he has him hanged

33:30 all right uh so uh to to wrap up you write that lincoln argued that we should not just follow the principles of the founding because they’re old but that each generation of americans should follow those intentions and practices of their forbearers that are worthy of their respect because they are right and it just got

33:52 me thinking about today’s you know sort of contention and incivility and and so how can lincoln’s political philosophy and civic virtues help restore a little civility to our own public discourse at a time when many of these principles and you know the idea of america has

34:13 really been kind of subject to a lot of debate recently so how can you help restore that um that i think that is a question on the top of everybody every good american every decent americans list right now things that we have to figure out this isn’t an option for us this is essential uh especially when we have we just had this transfer of political

34:33 power number one uh it’s basically what we’ve been talking about this whole time is we we would do well to re-read lincoln or read them for the first time for that matter get any good one volume edition of lincoln’s writings and look at how lincoln spoke about political things

34:54 especially in the 1850s and 60s when he was a national figure and so to i would call that principled rhetoric rhetoric has a pejorative connotation but by rhetoric i just simply mean you know the arts art of persuasion so how did lincoln try to persuade people how did he try to shape and inform the public mind i say it’s principled rhetoric it’s not

35:15 simple you know sophistry it’s not simply just tricking people deceiving people with words and and then doing your your own will it’s doing it’s persuading the public in a principled fashion so to read lincoln is to read the founders to read lincoln is to remind ourselves of the meaning not just the words but the meaning of the declaration of independence and

35:35 ultimately i would say in short order the meaning of america we do that most famously by reading the great uh the great gettysburg address and and the other if if the gettysburg address is the mount everest uh k2 is the second inaugural address so read those start there uh there are others if you uh if you if you want suggestions so principled rhetoric and i would say

35:57 secondly it’s not just what how we speak to each other it’s how we act how are we to act and we talked about this a little bit before how are we to pursue justice how are we to pursue the common good how should we attempt to secure rights in a more capacious more comprehensive way um and honestly the the the way we

36:18 we we have to immediately do this is to exercise restraint publicly as we assemble what does the first amendment say to peaceably split infinitive to peaceably assemble uh to do so in a peaceable fashion not to look the other way when mobs form and get carried away if

36:39 you will by design or just by the heat of the moment in destruction of of property and in some cases lives we can’t turn in a blind eye to thy eye to that when we believe in the cause it should not matter what the cause is and again justice isn’t uh determined uh in a town square

36:59 by by bullhorn it is done according to the orderly peaceful sorry slow deliberate processes of the law and courts should we have protests absolutely should we have demonstrations for sure but in those demonstrations and king

37:19 right the king of this right the guy who rehabilitated the notion of mass demonstrations said that we have to do it in a non-violent way we have to do it in a non-destructive way we’ve got to do it in a way where we are exercising the self-restraint that we believe is being denied us by institutions of power very good words of wisdom

37:41 the book is lincoln and the american founding lucas thank you very much for uh joining me today uh for joining us at bri uh and uh thank you for all of our viewers for watching uh if you like this video please be sub sure to subscribe to our channel and also to comment below we put out new videos on tuesday and

38:02 thursdays exploring u.s history and civics in regular primary source close reads in scholar talk interviews and homework help videos for students please come and join our conversation on facebook twitter and instagram for updates on how you can get involved with bri

38:22 thank you thanks tony