Lincoln (Was "The Founders and Slavery")

[Richard Dougherty]

If I could piggyback on Mark's questions concerning Lincoln, in the hopes that
this truly illuminating discussion continues. What do we make of this remark of
Lincoln's in 1859?
"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 to-day, and
in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very
harbingers of re-appearing tyrany [sic] and oppression."
Or, his speech in Independence Hall in 1861 (which must be connected to the
earlier remark): "I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring
from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence."
To the historians who may know: Does Lincoln ever criticize Jefferson, for his
theory or his practice?  If not, is it because he didn't know as much as we seem
to know about Jefferson?

Richard Dougherty
University of Dallas

Scarberry, Mark wrote:

> I think I agree more with Paul Finkelman than with Tom West on the issue of
> Thomas Jefferson's moral failings on the slavery issue. (I am willing to
> consider someone like TJ to be a great man despite his very deep moral
> flaws, and I do think his rhetoric at least helped to set up the eventual
> emancipation.) But I want to know what Paul thinks of Lincoln's famous
> statement that if he could preserve the Union by freeing none of the slaves,
> he would do it. Lincoln's personal revulsion for slavery was clear, but he
> seemed willing to subordinate freedom for blacks to the need to preserve the
> nation. Or is it more accurate to say that Lincoln's opposition to the
> expansion of slavery was a long term strategy to strangle the institution of
> slavery and that preservation of the Union was required for that strategy to
> succeed? (In other words, was preservation of the Union an instrumental
> goal, with the ending of slavery the final goal?)
>
> Mark S. Scarberry
> Pepperdine University School of Law
> mailto:mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu <mailto:mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Finkelman [mailto:Paul-Finkelman at UTULSA.EDU]
> Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2000 1:52 PM
> To: CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
> Subject: Re: The Founders and Slavery
>
> Clyde is exactly right.  Indeed, the whole way Jefferson approaches slavery
> has a fantasy element to it.   [snip]  The contrast with Lincoln is obvious.
> When given the opportunity to act, Lincoln did, and forcefully.   [snip]
>
> Paul Finkelman
> Chapman Distinguished Professor
> University of Tulsa College of Law
> 3120 East Fourth Place
> Tulsa, OK  74104
>
> 918-631-3706
> Fax 918-631-2194
>
> E-mail:  paul-finkelman at utulsa.edu