12/11/08

LINCOLN AND THOREAU:

SLAVERY, THE UNION, AND MORAL BANKRUPTCY

The 1800s marked a moment of unusually severe political tension in the history of

the United States. The controversy surrounding slavery came to a dramatic head,

contributing to the outbreak of the Civil War, the bloodiest war fought on American soil.

One part of this political discord is encompassed by two contemporary thinkers, Abraham

Lincoln and Henry Thoreau. The critical disparity between their philosophical structures

is that which they identify as the supreme governing authority. Abraham Lincoln's

allegiance to American law is absolute, while for Henry Thoreau, morality is the ultimate

authority. Because of this, their political philosophies are utterly incompatible; Lincoln

tolerates the evil of slavery in the South, because to him, America’s law is sacred.

Contrarily, because slavery is anathema to Thoreau, he must sacrifice America’s legal

framework. This conflict illustrates the limit of antebellum politics in upholding both

morality and institutional law.

Abraham Lincoln fears that America’s national stability is in danger of being

subverted by lawlessness. In his 1828 speech, “The Perpetuation of Our Political

Institutions,” Lincoln expresses his great deference for the United States: “We find

ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more

essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of

former times tells us” (Great Speeches 2). Lincoln believes America is the bastion of

liberty and freedom. He therefore expresses tremendous indignation at “the operation of

this mobocratic spirit,” because “the strongest bulwark of [our] Government…may

effectually be broken down and destroyed” (Great Speeches 4). The government,

Lincoln worries, cannot survive if the sanctity of the law is violated by the people. "If the

laws be continually despised and disregarded,” the young Lincoln warns, “the alienation

of [the peoples’] affections from the Government is the natural consequence…it must

come " (Great Speeches 5). He holds that the breakdown of order will inevitably follow

the “mobocratic spirit.” Lincoln fears that if the legitimacy of the law is undermined,

America will face dire consequences.

To protect the integrity of America’s political institutions, Lincoln advocates a

popular revitalization of, and strict adherence to, Constitutional law. Invoking the

American Revolution and Founding Fathers is the cornerstone of Lincoln’s approach. He

dourly contends: “Let every lover of liberty… as the patriots of seventy-six did to the

support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and

Laws let every American pledge…his sacred honor" (Great Speeches 5). By calling upon

the “patriots of seventy-six,” Lincoln endows his plea to stringently follow American law

with the credibility and respectability of the Founding Fathers. Emphasizing the

importance of passing the Founding Fathers’ law down the generations, Lincoln

impassionedly affirms, “let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American

mother, to the lisping babe, that prattle on her lap” (Great Speeches 5). In a similar

fashion of unequivocal verbosity, Lincoln declares that law should “become the political

religion of the nation,” that all Americans should “sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars”

(Great Speeches 5). Lincoln argues that only by imbuing America’s collective social

consciousness with the law will the nation be secure from internal antagonism. If

America follows this counsel, Lincoln declares, “Vain will be every effort and fruitless
every attempt, to subvert our national freedom” (Great Speeches 5). With much fervor,

Lincoln asserts that a rigid devotion to the law will protect the order in the United States.

Though it may help preserve the nation’s stability, Lincoln’s strict adherence to

the law risks moral bankruptcy on the issue of slavery. In Lincoln’s 1860 address at the

Cooper Institute, he pronounces many times his opposition to chattel bondage. He calls

it, for example, an “an evil,” declaring he and his party “[think] it wrong…in view of our

moral, social, and political responsibilities” (Great Speeches 43; Great Speeches 51).

Yet, in light of his “moral, social, and political” grievances, Lincoln concedes that

slavery should “be tolerated and protected…Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it,

be, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly, maintained” (Great Speeches 43). Despite his

clearly stated moral objection to slavery, because of “guaranties” made by the Founding

Fathers—in whom rest greater authority for Lincoln than his own conscience—slavery

should be heartedly protected. Lincoln furthermore underscores the weakness of fighting

this “evil” within a strict legal framework. “Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet

afford to let it alone where it is…but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to

spread?” (Great Speeches 51). Though he believes slavery is wrong, he can oppose only

its expansion into new areas, insofar as his “votes will prevent it.” To protect the nation

from internal dissent, Lincoln’s advocates the adoption of an exacting legal framework.

By doing so, he may stifle domestic unrest, but his method suffers moral capitulation

with regards to slavery.

Whereas Lincoln reveres American law, Thoreau sees the legal system as a

largely corrupting force in society. "Law never made men a whit more just,” Thoreau

declares, “and, by means of their respect for it even the well-disposed are daily made the
agents of injustice" (Civil Disobedience 2). Thoreau sees law as the highest detriment to

society’s collective morality. The law’s ability to corrupt is powerful enough to defile

the honesty of even the “well-disposed.” Therefore, legislators "rarely make any moral

distinctions, [and] they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God"

(Civil Disobedience 3). America’s legislators, because they are working within this legal

framework, cannot make morally conscious decisions; legality leaves “no free exercise

whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense” (Civil Disobedience 2). Because

legislators give rise to immoral law, citizens are coerced into acting “against their

common sense and consciences” (Civil Disobedience 2). Therefore, Thoreau staunchly

holds that the American law and morality are almost entirely exclusive from one another.

With the matter of slavery, Thoreau’s philosophy upholds moral principles,

though at the cost of dissolving the state. Drawing from his conclusion that the American

legal system is indelibly corrupted and corrupting, Thoreau declares that one cannot

“without disgrace” be associated with the American government (Civil Disobedience 3).

“All machines have their friction,” Thoreau decries, “but when the friction comes to

have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a

machine any longer” (Civil Disobedience 4). The moral injustice of slavery is so great to

Thoreau that it sullies the entire moral character of the nation; the friction of slavery

defeats the machine of America. Because slavery so greatly harms the integrity of

America, “a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty,” Thoreau deems “it

is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize" (Civil Disobedience 4). It is on

this premise that Thoreau proclaims “abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw

their support…from the government” (Civil Disobedience 8). Abolitionists cannot

honestly fight slavery while supporting a government which upholds that evil. Anti-

slavery must therefore be anti-government. With this, Thoreau “quietly declare[s] war on

the State” (Civil Disobedience 15). Thoreau’s exceptional devotion to morality cannot

exist within the legal institutional framework of America—his philosophy requires that

he be revolutionary. Slavery thus poses an impossible dilemma for the antebellum

political world. Lincoln must sacrifice his morality because his ultimate authority is

American law; Thoreau, conversely, must sacrifice the American law in order to uphold

that which he identifies as the only true governing authority, morality.

Perhaps the political tension between Thoreau and Lincoln encompasses the

greater political tension of constitutional democracy. Though holding one set of laws as

sacred endows them with great authority, their interpretability predisposes a nation to

certain compromises. Furthermore, the very authority of a constitution can undermine it.

For instance, if two opposing parties hold a shared constitution as their raison d’être, this

presents a dangerous situation in which nobody, essentially, is ‘right.’ On the other hand,

Thoreau’s moral authority can be equally unstable. Many Southern Paternalist

slaveholders could have used their personal understanding of morality to justify slavery.

Much of political life, then, is simply left to interpretation. As the Civil War

demonstrates, politics can quickly devolve into violence when interpretations conflict.
Works Cited

Abraham Lincoln Great Speeches. World Publishing Company, 1946.

Thoreau, Henry David. “Civil Disobedience” 1849.