Review

Allen C. Guelzo. Redeeming the Great Emancipator. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. 189.

 
In 1922, W.E.B. Du Bois outraged Lincoln admirers with a series of uncomplimentary observations about the president. In Du Bois’s view, he was “a Southern poor white, of illegitimate birth, poorly educated and unusually ugly;” a man who “liked smutty stories;” who “was a politician down to his toes” and “had little outwardly that compelled respect.” Yet, Lincoln was “big inside. “ Unlike many of his contemporaries, he possessed qualities that enabled him to escape the constraints of habit and convention. So when the Civil War came, he was “big enough to be inconsistent—cruel, merciful; peace-­loving, a fighter; despising Negroes and letting them fight and vote; protecting slavery and freeing slaves. He was a man—a big, inconsistent, brave man.”[1]

Du Bois’s pivot at the end of the article proved insufficient to placate those who believed unreservedly in Lincoln’s greatness. Swift and vociferous criticism followed, compelling Du Bois to temper (somewhat) his remarks a few months later. Americans prefer flawless heroes, he suggested, a habit that renders those so honored “perfect” but nevertheless “cold and dead.” Rather than diminishing the great, their imperfections and contradictions “enhance the worth and meaning of their upward struggle.”[2] Lincoln was great because his flaws did not hinder his vision and his resolve to do the right thing.

The tendency in some circles, especially in the African-­American community, to see Lincoln as somewhat less than the “Great Emancipator” that history recalls, continues to be a source of dismay for those who think of him as the primary, if not the sole, architect of black freedom. They regard it as a denial of his efforts on behalf of the enslaved, as impugning his motives and even questioning if he was ever committed to freedom. Add to this the debate over self-­emancipation, the idea that enslaved people largely freed themselves, and the battle lines are drawn as rigidly as they were a century-­and-­a half ago.

Allen C. Guelzo, Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College, is a veteran of the Lincoln as “Great Emancipator” vs. the self-­emancipation divide. His award-­winning studies of the president have provided insightful analyses that illuminate our understanding of the private individual, whose ideas about slavery and freedom were shaped by personal beliefs, and the public servant, constrained by Constitutional guarantees of rights in property. Redeeming the Great Emancipator continues his long-­held and often-­stated position that the president was the right man (the only man) for the job of emancipator and wholly deserving of the title people of his own time (including the formerly enslaved) bestowed on him. Consisting of three essays that evolved out of the Nathan L. Huggins Lectures Series at Harvard University’s Du Bois Institute, the volume answers Lincoln’s critics and seeks to explain why it is so difficult for recent generations of Americans to acknowledge his emancipating activities without reservation or suspicion.

Redeeming the Great Emancipator recalls the origins of the designation, embraced in the midst of hopeful anticipation by freedom’s first generation and its leaders, and continued by its children and those, black and white, who believed his name would help them to challenge the prejudices and injustices that would prove difficult to conquer in the post-­emancipation era. Guelzo reminds us that hope faded as scientific racism shaped and reinforced preexisting notions of inferiority that justified efforts to keep African Americans in a subordinate position. He dismisses the idea that emancipation failed because northerners, eager to reconcile with the South, conveniently forgot the role that slavery had played in bringing about the war and that emancipation had played in Union victory. Instead, he ascribes that failure to a combination of factors, among them Lincoln’s untimely death and his replacement with Andrew Johnson, who in his action (and inaction) gave white men hope that their power and privilege could be preserved despite the demise of slavery. Even though a more unforgiving Congress seized control of the Reconstruction process by 1867 and the nation elevated Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency a year later, the passing of stalwart Republican leaders and a resurgence of the less sympathetic (and often overtly racist) Democratic Party at both the state and national levels, brought new challenges for African Americans. At the same time, the judicial branch of government, in part eager to reclaim authority from the executive and legislative, rendered decisions that had a negative impact on the fortunes of freedpeople. Johnson’s pardoning of the southern elite, their return to power and repossession of their lands destroyed the Republican plan for implementing a free labor system, which would have facilitated black economic independence. Finally, Guelzo argues that infighting within the African American community, including internal divisions arising from color prejudice, contributed to what he considers the “most singular failure” of the era of Reconstruction—the inability of black people to coalesce around one individual who could “bind together the disparate shards of African American identity into a single movement” (56).

Guelzo attributes the cynicism and suspicion surrounding Lincoln’s role in emancipation to the “coming of age ritual” that shapes the thinking of every generation but that is especially pervasive in our own time. “Every reputation has a shelf life,” he suggests, but Lincoln’s has been diminished over the years by critics from Du Bois to Lerone Bennett, the latter charging in his book-­length study, nearly two decades ago, that the president had sought to protect slavery instead of moving decisively and quickly to end it. Even in Lincoln’s day there were those who questioned his commitment to freedom. Of course, he had given them and students of history since ample opportunity to be suspicious of his motives. Guelzo addresses the problematic Charleston speech, his fourth debate with Illinois’s incumbent U.S. senatorial candidate Stephen A. Douglas, in which Lincoln declared his opposition to social and political equality for African Americans. But he rejects any attempt to interpret this as evidence of support for slavery. He agrees with Gabor Boritt’s argument that Lincoln believed in the right of every man and woman to rise, to better themselves. This was not possible within slavery, since it prevented the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Yet his approach to antislavery, Guelzo admits, was at times “bafflingly obtuse.” He saw slavery primarily as an issue involving the rights of labor; race was secondary. It followed, then, that he would be opposed to its expansion into the territories because it was a barrier to their ability to rise.

In his effort to defend Lincoln’s reputation, Guelzo launches a vigorous challenge to the idea of self-­emancipation. For him, the proponents of this idea fail to appreciate the complexity of emancipation and the president’s unique role in it. In their haste to give agency to African Americans, they imagine a “general strike” of the slaves, whose actions forced Lincoln to move in their direction. In reality, he argues, there was no significant uprising of the enslaved; the majority stayed where the war found them. Even those who managed to flee slavery did not acquire legal freedom until implementation of the Emancipation Proclamation. Nor do claims that abolitionists pressured Lincoln to act in the interests of the enslaved survive scrutiny. As a group, abolitionists were too small a constituency to exert significant influence on the president. Although he cautions against accepting the idea that “the slaves did nothing,” he clearly views Lincoln’s actions as paramount.

It is not surprising, then, that Guelzo views reparations with a great deal of skepticism. He questions the notion, championed aggressively by, among others, Randall Robinson, author of The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks; Michigan Congressman John Conyers; and Ta-­Nehisi Coates, national correspondent for the Atlantic, who argue for monetary compensation for the injustices done to African Americans as a consequence of slavery and its legacy. Guelzo provides a broad analysis of the thorny questions that would make such action unachievable. What is the most likely path to demand such reparations, he asks. Will it be through legislation or litigation? If the latter path is taken, who would be the defendant—the federal government or the states? How would a suit against the national government impact the doctrine of sovereign immunity? If action was taken against the states, which ones; the former Confederacy only or the northern states as well? And given the interracial composition of the nation, who would be the plaintiffs? He finds seemingly endless roadblocks.

Guelzo’s final essay in the volume is devoted to the issue of Lincoln’s religious beliefs. Despite his failure to embrace established religion (he never joined a church, and there is no evidence that he was ever baptized), he was well versed in scripture and he embraced a “religion” based on belief in natural rights, the law of nature, and the presence of a God from whom he could seek divine guidance. Quoting Lincoln’s friend Leonard Swett, Guelzo sees Lincoln appealing to the “great laws of truth . . . the ultimate triumph of right, and the overthrow of wrong” (126). It was this creed that shaped his attitude about slavery.

There is much in this volume to recommend. It is engagingly written, as is all of Guelzo’s work, and it succinctly (and at times convincingly) argues his case for redeeming Lincoln’s reputation. One can agree that there is incontrovertible evidence supporting the centrality of Lincoln’s role in emancipation, not the least of which was the issuing of a proclamation that opened the doors to freedom and a “fair chance in the race of life.” But some of Guelzo’s assertions merit challenge. For instance, his suggestion that colorism and interracial feuds created a climate that prevented the black community from producing a leader who could effectively represent the aspirations of all the people, what he considers “the most singular failure” of black Reconstruction in the South, may be supported by anecdotal evidence, but it is far from definitive. It ignores the diversity of experiences of African Americans before emancipation as well as after. To be sure, African Americans were not monolithic in their thinking. Why would we expect them to be? And what mechanism was in place to facilitate the emergence of a single individual who could represent the interests of these diverse groups? As for the issue of colorism, perhaps it deserves less attention than it often receives. We must remember that not every mulatto was a free person, and not every person who could claim racial purity was enslaved and consigned to the fields. In slavery, social and cultural practices (including color preferences) were shaped by location. One would not expect practices in New Orleans to parallel those on the Sea Islands. Moreover, African Americans, enslaved and free, understood that the community’s mixed race populations originated with sexual exploitation, a horrific extension of the physical exploitation that all endured. Although colorism doubtless played a role in dividing African Americans, it was by no means the only factor, or even the most important. The “most singular failure” of Reconstruction had less to do with black antagonisms toward each other (resulting from color prejudice or otherwise) than with the nation’s unwillingness to address the needs of its most vulnerable residents.

It warrants noting as well that the cost of black freedom—calculated by Guelzo in the form of war dead, destruction of property, crippling of the southern economy, and financial outlay to prosecute the war—does not invalidate the claim for reparations. Even if one were to assign all costs for the war to the effort to destroy slavery, this would hardly begin to redress past grievances. Injustice and oppression did not end with the Civil War. It simply took new form, guided by the states and concurred in by the national government.

As he acknowledges in the preface, Guelzo is writing at a time of rising racial tensions and, one might add, in the midst of a mounting polarization that is potentially destructive of the Union that Lincoln sought to preserve and perfect. In part, those tensions arise from the inability and the unwillingness of either side to recognize the legitimacy of sentiments of the other. It is equally true of the decades-­ long antagonism between those who would concede nothing to the proponents of the “Great Emancipator” idea and those who would declare that Lincoln operated with little or no help to bring freedom to the slaves. What we are witnessing in the challenges to Lincoln’s reputation may indeed be, as Guelzo has suggested, a coming of age ritual that discounts, even denies the influences of the past. But it is, as well, the fallout from a century and a half of elevating Lincoln at the expense of all other key players in the emancipation drama, including the abolitionists and men and women of color. It is unlikely that the opposing positions will be reconciled any time soon.

1. W.E.B. Du Bois, Crisis, July 1922.

2. W.E.B. Du Bois, “Again Lincoln,” Crisis, September 1922.