Lincoln, the Politician Part 20

Statesmanship looks to the preservation of the primal principles of the Republic, favors the general welfare whenever circ.u.mstances permit, seeks its progressive evolution, encourages prudent reform, a reform that is not the parent of reaction. It avoids alike the radicalism of the demagogue and the stagnation of the materialist. While stupid conservatism is unwittingly the main friend of anarchy, statesmanship is its chief foe. The stability of the Republic depends on wise leadership, courageous enough to combat violence on the one hand and greed on the other.

Egoism and foolish fears are the chief obstacles of human progress. Self interest being the main source of human action, it is the problem of the politician to quicken the public conscience and convince the community that advancement and enlightened selfishness are companions. Altruism is a large factor in human evolution, yet not so basic that it may be made the foundation of abiding government. It is a high mission to lead the people to the conception of making self interest an every day servant of the general welfare.

Expediency is as essential to the triumph of right as to that of wrong.

Cunning materialism may vanquish virtue that is a stranger to wisdom, but prudent integrity never knows final defeat. The following of visions without purpose is as vain as the worship of debasing worldliness.

Politics is a larger phase of life than the idealist comprehends, while ideas are more dominant than politicians dream.

In an ideal state diplomats would be no more essential than the physician, lawyer, jurist and minister. Compromise finds its basis in human weakness, conservatism and selfishness. The history of humanity is written in blood and tears largely because men have been p.r.o.ne to pa.s.sion and prejudice rather than true to reason and judgment. Politics is the art of securing results in government. It is a study of success applied to legislation and administration.

There are few problems of larger moment than the general acceptance of the wisest policy in combating established and organized evil.

Civilization itself depends on the manner in which the unresting battle between the constructive and destructive forces in society is conducted and decided. Mighty empires have flourished and fallen, democracies have sprung to life and decayed, dauntless protesters have sacrificed on the altar of conviction, even nations under the spirit of high impulses have for a short time followed the banner of the brotherhood of man. Yet in spite of ages of progress, of heroic martyrdom, the battle is still of the same character as the conflict was on the plains of Palestine, the banks of the Nile and the seven hills of Rome. Human nature has changed largely in outer manifestations, not in essential character. The selfishness of man, vested interests, fear of change, still stand in the way of righteous reforms, which are now as bitterly contested as they were by the patricians of Latium and the barons of the middle ages. In the conflicts of centuries good men have sunk sometimes in a fearless, sometimes in an imprudent encounter with the host of cohesive and malignant interests. Selfish motives unite the supporters of evil, while the forces of righteousness are often discordant and rent with civil feuds. Economic interest is the influence that makes evil gregarious.

Lincoln conceived his plan of warfare on the organized evil of his time in wisdom. He attacked it at its weakest point, its injustice and its bad policy. He made it not only an ethical issue, but an economic one as well. He understood that reform must be founded on self interest as well as on justice. He fought the evil and not the wrong doer. He was aware of the influence of environment on the opinions of men whenever property rights were involved and so would not exact nor expect too much of the individual. He did not favor premature reform, knowing that it was not permanent. A foe to slavery, yet for a long time he was not a friend of abolitionism. He longed for the emanc.i.p.ation of the black man, yet would not buy it by attacks on the Const.i.tution or on the compromises of the statesmen of the Republic.

He admitted the evil of slavery, yet recognized the inst.i.tution as far as the law sanctioned its existence. So he would fight its transfer to new territory where it had no legal right of entrance. He would circ.u.mscribe and starve it, would favor compensated emanc.i.p.ation, and thus slowly and safely eradicate the evil from the nation. His political philosophy is worthy of the study of every citizen, patriot and reformer, of every man who believes in the dawn of better ages. His greatness consists in never having relinquished his lofty ideal in all of the materialism of daily compromise, and in never forgetting charity, justice and policy in his communion with world-shaking ideas.

No man in history longed for the triumph of justice more earnestly than Abraham Lincoln. He hated evil. Still his main purpose was the preservation of the principles of the republic. Rather than endanger them, the larger good, he would hesitate to begin a campaign against organized selfishness. Such battles for humanity require good generalship as well as those of cannon, fife and drum. It is not enough to hate evil, to strike at it in the dark. To husband strength, to bide the time, to await the solemn moment for attack, is political generalship, a generalship that is as essential in the Senate as on the battlefield.

He was willing to engage in the hard mission of educating men to believe that brotherhood was a more substantial foundation for humanity than hatred and selfishness. There was nothing of Don Quixote in his warfare.

Democracy was his religion, the source of his strength and the secret of his influence. All that he was, he largely owed to the privileges of the Republic, to the support of the plain people. He believed in them with a rare faith and they trusted him with remarkable fidelity, as the incarnation of the higher humanity. He was in harmony with the onward movement of sanity, justice and manhood. Charity to all was his platform, justice his program, democracy his guide. His spirit is the spirit of the new age. He almost marks as distinguished an advance in American history as Moses did in that of Israel.

The politician blindly follows, while the statesman wisely educates public sentiment. In his political philosophy Lincoln gave due weight to the potency of the general opinion of mankind. He said, "He who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or p.r.o.nounces decisions. He makes statutes or decisions possible or impossible to be executed." He well knew the principle, so paltrily recognized, by even modern legislators, that it is far more vital to prepare the public mind for righteous legislation than prematurely to pa.s.s laws. It would be well to write his supreme statement relating to public sentiment in every legislative hall and judicial tribunal in the whole land. An educated public sentiment will soon enough secure the pa.s.sage of appropriate legislation, and what is more essential, see to it that it is enforced. The curse of American politics is the pa.s.sage of mult.i.tudinous enactments to please certain organized interests and the deliberate indifference, if not hostility, of public sentiment to their subsequent enforcement. The problem will be far from settled until fewer laws are pa.s.sed, and such enactments are religiously enforced. Lincoln would not aid in the pa.s.sage of a law not intended to be enforced or incapable in the common course of events of being substantially enforced, and he recognized that legislation should be a practical science based on the actual character, the ability of a people to move forward. Froward reform is almost as pernicious as selfish conservatism.

So complete was Lincoln's mastery over the ma.s.ses that many have misunderstood the power of his genius as merely following public opinion. He did infinitely more. He studied the capacity of men for progress, slowly leading them to the higher alt.i.tude. Lincoln recognized the limitations of average human advance; that the mind and heart move slowly in the march of centuries. He worked with the materials at hand and builded on the solid foundation of the real national character. He did not stand in the direct way of events, still he deemed it a duty ever to guide them toward the goal of an advancing civilization.

The att.i.tude of Lincoln to party organization is of commanding interest.

There was no more valiant, earnest worker in the Whig ranks. None can question his devotion to the routine, burdensome labor of the campaign.

In making speeches, in writing platforms, in arranging meetings, in issuing circulars, and in the tiring work at the polls, he was a persistent toiler, a loyal partisan. In the Legislature he usually voted with his a.s.sociates. He often sought to strengthen the party in the selection of office holders.

He believed in organized political action. He remained a trusted leader in the party of his choice, seldom alienating himself from the party managers, or the rank and file. Still he was no slave of party or caucus. His party, town or state, could not buy or bribe his integrity, or get him to be false to his duty. He believed that parties were useful to democratic government as long as they were substantially in harmony with its deeper objects. Still he did not deem them sacred, and when circ.u.mstances demanded, favored their dissolution, and the organization of new parties. He was one of the few politicians in American history who acted on the conviction that the man who served his state best, best served his party. Having no sympathy with anarchy in politics, he gave full value to the importance of the organization, but did not exalt it into an object of adoration. Above it, he placed loyalty to the Const.i.tution and the fathers of the country. He was neither mugwump nor partisan.

There are two cla.s.ses of men, materialists and visionaries. The materialist is a slave to the fact. He is so intent on the earth that he seldom enjoys a glimpse of star or constellation. Still he is a student of methods and results, a worshipper of success, and hence he is generally in the ascendancy. The visionary is a slave to his ideal, he looks at the world as it should be and not as it is. While he gazes at the sunset and the evening star he falls in the pit at his feet. He resembles the mariner of Heine:

"A wonderful lovely maiden, Sits high in her glory there, Her robe with gems is laden, And she combeth her golden hair, And as she combs it, The gold comb glistens, The while she is singing a song, That hath a mystical sound and a wonderful melody, The boatman when once she has bound him, Is lost in wild mad love, He sees not the black rocks around him, He sees but the beauty above."

The real leaders in the world's history have been idealists of high practical wisdom. They have been the captains, not the subjects of their ideal. The petty politician rules for the day. The men who dominate the ages give substance to shadow, make the dream of one day the reality of another, crystallize the yearnings of humanity into statute and decision.

The world is used to the omnipresent politician. The visionary, the undaunted reformer, is not an infrequent partic.i.p.ant in the domain of affairs. The political idealist, with the judgment of the one and the inspiration of the other, is so rare that he confounds by his presence.

The combination astounds the generation unaccustomed to such a phenomenon. The man of high endowments is stupidly expected to be wanting in worldliness, and the practical representative of the people in the vision. The solution of all political problems depends on political sagacity illumined with altruism. The political idealist consummates the alliance of vision with method.

Lincoln was neither idealist nor politician. With the idealist he was faithful to the vision, with the politician he studied the way to success. He was not lost in mere adoration of the ideal; was not content until it became a reality. He blended the enthusiasm of the visionary with the wisdom of the politician. He was the ideal politician.

Lincoln was the prophet politician of his time, blending the righteousness of the Hebraic seer with political sagacity. He faced failure imperiously. He was never finally vanquished. He looked beyond temporary triumph to ultimate consequences. Despite setback, disaster and every obstacle, he had abounding faith in the abiding triumph of justice.

He knew the shortcomings of human nature, the painful, sluggard progress of moral evolution. He weighed men as they were and not as he wished them to be. Hence, he was patient with their failings. He made ample allowance for the heavy hand of habit, for ancestral, religious, political, social and industrial environment. That men were largely the children of their time was to him an ever present truth. Cooperation not antagonism was his method of achievement. He would not force progress and he recognized the sway of the grim law of necessity. He measured the labored march of public sentiment. He waited the slow processes of time; was no believer in magical reforms or quack political remedies. He did not squander his energies in the wonderland of dreams. He is the wisest politician in American history, consummate in his strategy for the general welfare, the supreme friend and champion of democracy and humanity.

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