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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2015
In an unsent 1860 letter, Abraham Lincoln mocked Sidney Fisher's claim that the “institution [of slavery] is a necessity imposed on us by the negro race.” And yet, Lincoln himself had often said that while slavery was an evil, the founders had to tolerate it where it existed owing to “necessity.” This raises the questions: What kinds of arguments about slavery and “necessity” did Lincoln find legitimate, and what kinds did he find to be illegitimate? In Lincoln's view, what exactly was it that necessitated the toleration of slavery where it existed at the time of the founding and into the 1850s? Lincoln's answers to these questions depart from the answers offered by Fisher, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Clay; this departure helped pave the way not only to Lincoln's later embrace of emancipation, but also his eventual movement toward the position that African-Americans would and should be full citizens.
1 Lincoln, Abraham, “Handbill Replying to Charges of Infidelity,” 31 July 1846, in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Basler, Roy P. et al. , 9 vols. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953)Google Scholar, 1:382. Hereafter CW.
2 See, for example, Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, 16 October 1854, in CW, 2:274.
3 Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation, 1 January 1863, in CW, 6:30.
4 Lincoln to Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864, in CW, 7:282.
5 Important insights into the ways that Lincoln invoked “necessity” are also found in Smith, Steven B., “How to Read Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address,” in The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 483–85.Google Scholar
6 Guelzo, Allen, Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009), 34, 37–38.Google Scholar
7 Bromwich, David, “Lincoln's Constitutional Necessity,” Raritan 20 (Winter 2001): 7.Google Scholar
8 Guelzo, Lincoln as a Man of Ideas, 41.
9 Bromwich, “Lincoln's Constitutional Necessity,” 1.
10 According to an editorial note in Basler's Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, the book was probably either Kanzas and the Constitution (1856) or The Law of the Territories (1859). See editorial note 1 in CW, 4:101. However, Basler and his editorial team should have definitively identified the book as The Law of the Territories, for Lincoln would refer to “the long preface of the book,” and Kanzas and the Constitution lacks any preface. See Lincoln to Charles H. Fisher, 27 August 1860, in CW, 4:101. The only one of Fisher's books with a lengthy preface is The Law of the Territories.
11 Lincoln to Fisher, in CW, 4:101 (emphases in the original).
12 See, for example, Burlingame, Michael, The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1994)Google Scholar, 32, and Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, vol. 1 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008)Google Scholar, 476.
13 Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, in CW, 2:274.
14 Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIV, in Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York: Library of America, 1984), 270.Google Scholar
15 Henry Clay, Speech in Lexington, Kentucky, 13 November 1847, in The Papers of Henry Clay, vol. 10 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1991), 372–73.Google Scholar
16 Sidney Fisher's life and writings are discussed in Wainwright, Nicholas, “Sidney George Fisher—The Personality of a Diarist,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 72 (April 1962): 15–30Google Scholar, and White, Jonathan, introduction to A Philadelphia Perspective: The Civil War Diary of Sidney George Fisher, ed. White, Jonathan (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007), 1–13.Google Scholar
17 James E. Harvey to Abraham Lincoln, 6 October 1860. Available at Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division (Washington, DC: American Memory Project, 2000–2001), http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/alhome.html.
18 In a diary entry from 1834, Fisher called President Jackson “the head of the democratic party, in other words, the chieftain of the lower orders.” See Fisher, Sidney, A Philadelphia Perspective: The Diary of Sidney George Fisher Covering the Years 1834–1871, ed. Wainwright, Nicholas (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1967), 6–7.Google Scholar
19 Immediately impressed with Lincoln's inaugural address, Fisher declared: “He who wrote it is no common man.” See Fisher, diary entry of 5 March 1860, in Civil War Diary of Sidney George Fisher, 78.
20 Neely, Mark, Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011)Google Scholar, 105.
21 Fisher, Sidney, The Trial of the Constitution (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1862)Google Scholar, 309.
22 A number of historians have found Fisher's diary to be useful. Eric Foner, for example, quotes from it a handful of times in Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (New York: Norton, 2011)Google Scholar, 142, 160, 162, 172, 265. Fisher's diary was first published in book form in 1967, and an abridged version focused on the Civil War period was published in 2007. On Fisher's The Trial of the Constitution, see, inter alia, Neely, Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation, 100–107, 110–11, and Riker, William H., “Sidney George Fisher and the Separation of Powers during the Civil War,” Journal of the History of Ideas 15 (June 1954): 397–412.Google Scholar
23 The essay was published under the pseudonym “Cecil.” It was reprinted in October of 1860 in a brief book by Fisher. See Fisher, Sidney G., “Mr. Dallas and Lord Brougham,” in The Laws of Race, as Connected with Slavery (Philadelphia: W. P. Hazard, 1860), 53–70.Google Scholar
24 The Manchester Weekly Advertiser's account of this incident is found in Levine, Robert, Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997)Google Scholar, 187.
25 Fisher, “Mr. Dallas,” 53.
26 Discussions of the impact of Shakespeare on Lincoln include Miller, William L., Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 50–51Google Scholar, 81–82, and Smith, “Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address,” 490–91.
27 Lincoln, Speech at Springfield, Illinois, 17 July 1858, in CW, 2:520–21.
28 Fisher, “Mr. Dallas,” 70.
29 Ibid., 58.
30 Ibid., 57 (emphasis added).
31 Ibid., 56 (emphasis added).
32 Ibid., 57 (emphasis added).
33 Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, in CW, 2:271.
34 Lincoln, Speech at New Haven, 6 March 1860, in CW, 4:16.
35 Lincoln, Fragment on Pro-slavery Theology, [1 October 1858?], in CW, 3:204. For an illuminating discussion of Lincoln's critique of biblical justifications for slavery, see Fornieri, Joseph, Abraham Lincoln's Political Faith (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003)Google Scholar, chap. 3.
36 Fisher, Law of the Territories (Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1859)Google Scholar, xiii.
37 Fisher, “Mr. Dallas,” 66. Aristotle maintained that for those who “are by nature slaves . . . it is better for them. . . to be ruled by a master.” See Aristotle, The Politics of Aristotle, ed. Barker, Ernest (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958)Google Scholar, 13.
38 Lincoln, Fragment on Pro-slavery Theology, in CW, 3:205.
39 Fisher, “Mr. Dallas,” 68 (emphasis added).
40 Lincoln, First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois, 21 August 1858, in CW, 3:16.
41 Jefferson claims that whites possess “superior beauty” and that this is a matter of “importance” in Query XIV, 264–65.
42 Ball, Terence, introduction to Abraham Lincoln: Political Writings, ed. Ball (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013)Google Scholar, xxvii.
43 Fisher, “Mr. Dallas,” 57.
44 Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, in CW, 2:266 (emphasis in the original).
45 Lincoln, Speech at New Haven, in CW, 4:16.
46 Fisher, Law of the Territories, xiii, xi.
47 Ibid., xvi.
48 Ibid., xiii.
49 Lincoln, Address at Cooper Institute, New York, 27 February 1860, in CW, 3:542, 539.
50 Fisher, diary entry of 27 October 1860, in Civil War Diary, 54.
51 Fisher, Law of the Territories, xxiv.
52 Fisher, diary entry of 6 November 1860, in Civil War Diary, 56–67 (emphasis added).
53 The fact that Lincoln was somewhat reticent regarding why the founders had to tolerate slavery was, no doubt, a deliberate choice on Lincoln's part, for as Smith has noted, “Lincoln's statesmanship consisted in a carefully modulated sense of what to say but also of what should be left unsaid.” See Steven B. Smith, introduction to Writings of Abraham Lincoln, xxiii. According to Smith, Lincoln refrained from calling attention to the ways in which his return to the principles of the founders—and especially the principles of the Declaration of Independence—actually involved a crucial reformulation of those principles (xx–xxiii). Similarly, I want to suggest that even as Lincoln departed from the specific arguments that Jefferson and Clay made about the necessity of tolerating slavery, Lincoln found it prudent not to call attention to that departure.
54 Lincoln, Speech at Chicago, 10 July 1858, in CW, 2:501 (emphasis added).
55 See Lincoln, Fragment on the Constitution and the Union, ca. January 1861, in CW, 4:169, and Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, 19 November 1863, in CW, 7:23.
56 Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, in CW, 2:274–75.
57 Lincoln, Annual Message to Congress, 1 December 1862, in CW, 5:537.
58 Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, in CW, 2:255.
59 Lincoln to Williamson Durley, 3 October 1845, CW, 1:348.
60 Foner, Fiery Trial, 42.
61 On the ways that Lincoln's understanding of the Constitution precluded him from becoming an abolitionist, see Wilson, Douglas L., Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 107–8.Google Scholar
62 Lincoln to George Robertson, 15 August 1855, in CW, 2:318.
63 Lincoln, Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes, 14 August 1862, in CW, 5:372–73.
64 Lincoln, Fragment on Slavery, [1 April 1854?], in CW, 2:222.
65 Scaevola [Henry Clay], “To the Citizens of Fayette,” February 1799, in The Papers of Henry Clay, vol. 1 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1959), 14.
66 Clay, Speech in Lexington, in Papers of Henry Clay, 10:372.
67 Clay to Richard Pindell, 7 February 1849, in Papers of Henry Clay, 10:576.
68 On Clay's understanding of slavery as a necessary evil, see Tallant, Harold, Evil Necessity: Slavery and Political Culture in Antebellum Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003), 1–3.Google Scholar
69 Jefferson, Query XIV, 264.
70 Jefferson to John Holmes, 22 April 1820, in Writings, 1434.
71 Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, in CW, 2:255–56.
72 I here concur with Eric Foner, who writes that “unlike Jefferson, Lincoln did not seem to fear a racial war if slavery was abolished. . . . Lincoln never spoke of free blacks as a vicious and degraded group dangerous to the stability of American society.” See Foner, Eric, “Lincoln and Colonization,” in Our Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World, ed. Foner (New York: Norton, 2008)Google Scholar, 146. While Foner notes, as I do, this departure from Jefferson, I seek to explore further the significance of this departure.
73 Frederickson, George, The Arrogance of Race: Historical Perspectives on Slavery, Racism, and Social Inequality (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989)Google Scholar, 65.
74 Lincoln, Message to Congress, in CW, 5:534–35.
75 Jefferson, Query XIV, 270.
76 Lincoln, Speech at Springfield, Illinois, 26 June 1857, in CW, 2:408–9.
77 Ibid., 405.
78 Ibid., 407.
79 Ibid., 405.
80 Ibid., 408.
81 Lincoln to Edwin M. Stanton, 8 February 1865, in CW, 8:272–73. Delany's meeting with Lincoln is discussed in Levine, Martin Delany, 221–23.
82 See Martin R. Delany: A Documentary Reader, ed. Levine, Robert (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003)Google Scholar, 378.
83 Lincoln, Last Public Address, 11 April 1865, in CW, 8:403.
84 Lincoln to James C. Conkling, 26 August 1863, in CW, 6:409.
85 In making the claim that despite his use of the language of “necessity,” Lincoln never abdicated the careful making of choices, I agree with—and seek to build on—Smith's claim that “Lincoln's appeal to necessity was not a general fatalism, much less quietism.” See Smith, “Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address,” 484.
86 See, for example, Machiavelli, Niccolò, Discourses on Livy, trans. Mansfield, Harvey and Tarcov, Nathan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)Google Scholar, bk. 3, chap. 41.
87 Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, in CW, 2:276.
88 See Lincoln to Lyman Trumbull, 10 December 1860, in CW, 4:149.
89 See Lincoln, “Response to a Serenade,” 10 November 1864, in CW, 8:101.
90 David Donald writes that his biography of Lincoln “highlights a basic trait of character evident throughout Lincoln's life: the essential passivity of his nature.” For critiques of Donald, see James McPherson, “A Passive President?,” Atlantic Monthly, November 1995, 134–40, and Smith, “Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address,” 488–89.
91 Lincoln, Speech in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, 22 February 1861, in CW, 4:240.
92 Fisher, “Race,” in Laws of Race, 11–12.
93 In his diary entry of 10 December 1869, Fisher writes that he arranged for The Trial of the Constitution to be sent to Gobineau, “as in it, his great work on Race was frequently quoted.” Fisher notes that he received from Gobineau a “very cordial & gracious” reply which “approves the Trial & proposes a correspondence with the author. This is of course all very pleasant, tho I rather shrink from a correspondence with a person so gifted & learned and famous.” See Diary of Sidney George Fisher Covering the Years 1834–1871, 555. Fisher also cited Gobineau's Essay on the Inequality of Human Races, as well as other works by the scientific racists Robert Knox, Josiah Nott, and George Gliddon, in Fisher, Laws of Race, 10.
94 Tocqueville to Gobineau, 17 November 1853 and 20 December 1853, in de Tocqueville, Alexis, Selected Letters on Politics and Society, ed. Boesche, Roger (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 297–301Google Scholar and 302–5.
95 Lincoln, Message to Congress, in CW, 5:537.
96 According to James Oakes, Lincoln may have supported the idea of colonization during the first two years of his presidency in part because it made the prospect of emancipation seem “more palatable” to racist whites. See Oakes, Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865 (New York: Norton, 2013)Google Scholar, 310. Oakes notes that after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, “he stopped advocating” colonization, as it had “served whatever purpose it ever had” (282).
97 Burt, John, Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism: Lincoln, Douglas, and Moral Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013)Google Scholar, xiii.
98 Ibid.
99 Ibid., 335.
100 Ibid., xiii.