Lincoln’s Jefferson

[Hawk1981]

It may seem strange that the Republican Abraham Lincoln would celebrate the life of Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democrat's Party, or in Lincoln's parlance, the "democracy." Jefferson believed that the only real wealth was land and that the only true occupation of virtuous and independent citizens in a republic was farming. Lincoln had been brought up as a farmer, but keenly disliked the occupation. He made his escape from the farm as soon as he turned 21.

Jefferson disliked “the selfish spirit of commerce” and regarded banks with special suspicion as the source of all commercial evil. “Banks may be considered as the primary source” of “paper speculation,” and only foster “the spirit of gambling in paper, in lands, in canal schemes, town lot schemes, manufacturing schemes and whatever could hit the madness of the day.” Lincoln promoted a state banking system in Illinois and public funding for canals and bridges, and as a lawyer, regularly represented "soulless corporations," especially railroads. Lincoln, as President, put into place a national banking system, protective tariffs for American manufacturing and government guarantees for building a transcontinental railroad.

Much as today's Republicans celebrate a day of party unity and fund-raising with a "Lincoln-Reagan Day", in the 1850s, the Republicans had appropriated Thomas Jefferson from the Democrats to celebrate his birthday, and considered him as at least the "spiritual" founder of the new party. Jefferson had managed to articulate certain universal truths about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln believed that Jefferson had formed "the definitions and axioms of free society."

In the spring of 1859, Henry Pierce had invited Lincoln to come to Boston to speak before a Republican Party "Jefferson Day" function. Lincoln was not able to attend, but sent a letter on April 6, that was read to the group. Lincoln had lately been defeated by Senator Stephen Douglas for his US Senate seat in a tight race, and had captured the imagination of Republicans across the country for his moderate anti-slavery stance and his ability to articulate Jefferson's principle that 'all men are created equal.' Insisting that no man was "good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent," Lincoln described Jefferson's Declaration as the "sheet anchor of American republicanism.

Jefferson's anti-slavery principles extended beyond the Declaration of Independence. The new nation had followed Jefferson's lead in excluding slavery from the 'Old Northwest' territories. In 1820, the terms of that exclusion had been applied again within the northern portion of the Louisiana Purchase as a result of the Missouri Compromise. No other policy would have been consistent with the principles of natural rights, human equality, and political freedom laid out in the document Jefferson wrote.

Lincoln's letter to Pierce starts off in wonder that Republicans hold Jefferson in higher esteem then the Democrats who claimed him as their founder, " the Jefferson party were formed upon its supposed superior devotion to the personal rights of men, holding the rights of property to be secondary only, and greatly inferior, and then assuming that the so-called democracy of today, are the Jefferson, and their opponents, the anti-Jefferson parties, it will be equally interesting to note how completely the two have changed hands as to the principle upon which they were originally supposed to be divided."

Lincoln continued the thought, "The democracy of today hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man's right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar."

Lincoln's reference for the founding fathers was never more evident than on his way to Washington for his first inauguration when he repeatedly stated that "we are all united in one feeling for the Union" and in following the example of "those noble fathers --Washington, Jefferson and Madison" whose ideas of liberty and equality of opportunity for all, as incorporated in the Declaration and Constitution, give "hope to the world for all future time."

Lincoln concluded his letter to Pierce and his associates with "All honor to Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that today, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression."

Included in the letter was a cautionary message too, "This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."

 

[Hawk1981]

In November, 1863, Lincoln reasserted Jefferson's phrase that 'all men are created equal' in his Gettysburg Address, acknowledging that even with all the temporary contradictions in practice, America's original aspiration was for all people to be considered fundamentally equal.

From a speech Lincoln gave in Lewistown, Illinois, on the Declaration of Independence on August 17, 1858:

"Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur, and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution."

 

[Hawk1981]

Lincoln especially knew how important the Declaration of Independence had become. When he said “all honor to Jefferson,” he paid homage to the one Founder who he knew could explain why the breakup of the Union could not be allowed. Lincoln knew what the Revolution had been about and what it implied not just for Americans but for all humanity, because Jefferson told him so.

Half the American people, Lincoln said in 1858, had no direct blood connection to the Founders of the nation. These German, Irish, French, Scandinavian citizens either had come from Europe themselves or their ancestors had, and they had settled in America. And amazingly, they found “themselves our equals in all things.”

Although these immigrants may have had no actual connection in blood with the Revolutionary generation that could make them feel part of the rest of the nation, they had, said Lincoln, “that old Declaration of Independence” with its expression of the moral principle, which was “applicable to all men and all times,” made all these different peoples one with the Founders, “as though they were blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration.”

 

[Moonglow]

Lincoln's reference for the founding fathers was never more evident than on his way to Washington for his first inauguration when he repeatedly stated that "we are all united in one feeling for the Union" and in following the example of "those noble fathers --Washington, Jefferson and Madison" whose ideas of liberty and equality of opportunity for all, as incorporated in the Declaration and Constitution, give "hope to the world for all future time."

Yet, Lincoln was at war with the founder's legacy of slavery, so much for the country being founded on liberty, equality of opportunity for all it was in reality for only a select group of humans, white landed gentry men of the US.

 

[Mac-7]

Yet, Lincoln was at war with the founder's legacy of slavery, so much for the country being founded on liberty, equality of opportunity for all it was in reality for only a select group of humans, white landed gentry men of the US.

The Founders laid the groundwork for equality and freedom for all

your bitterness toward America is misplaced as it is for most leftists

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Lincoln’s perspectives on the appropriateness and finally the urgent need for abolition changed over time. Jefferson’s views on slavery evolved over his own life — at least his passion to do away with “the peculiar institution” seemed to moderate as he aged. In many ways their personal views changed in opposite ways.

Over time Jefferson became more moderate whereas Lincoln became more radical. Or so it seemed. It was the experience and responsibilities of being President that moderated Jefferson’s anti-bank attitudes. Realism facing urgent or changing political/economic realities shaped both men’s thinking and idealism. Lincoln reminded Americans of — as he deeply pondered — the original radical Enlightenment impulses and principles of the American Revolution expressed by Jefferson. Those convictions gave him a rare clarity of purpose as the “irrepressible conflict” approached. Where others saw the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as pacts with slavery, he saw them as opening chapters of a universal struggle. Lincoln’s almost mystical faith in those ideas, embodied in the Union, gave him the courage to fight secession, and see to the end that bloody and awful but necessary struggle for a “rebirth of freedom” and Emancipation.

 

[Mushroom]

It may seem strange that the Republican Abraham Lincoln would celebrate the life of Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democrat's Party, or in Lincoln's parlance, the "democracy."

It is not strange at all, if you understood the history behind the parties.

And no, Thomas Jefferson did not found the "Democratic Party". He founded the Democratic-Republican Party. Which was the main opposition of the Federalist Party.

However, the Federalist Party imploded after the election of 1820. Then after the election of 1824, the Democratic-Republican party tore itself in half, leading to the Democratic Party, and the National Republican Party. In 1836 the Whig Party then rose where the NR could never do, and was the main opposition party until they tore themselves apart over slavery in the 1850s. The remainders then formed the Republican Party.

In reality, both parties recognize Jefferson as a funder. The Democrats as we know today did not wise until the election of Andrew Jackson in 1824. He is their actual founder. The actual goal of the D-R Party was to be a single unified party, but until John Quincy Adams that never happened, and it did not last long after that.

As I have seen with most of your posts, almost no research done, you simply make a silly claim, then pontificate on endlessly about things that actually have nothing to do with it.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Lincoln was much more conservative on states' rights and limited government, and much more anti-slavery and pro-civil rights, than his libertarian critics, such as Thomas DiLorenzo, give him credit for being.

 

[Regent23]

It seems as if today's Republicans have little regard for Lincoln.