A Legacy of Moral Courage

"Can You Take The Hill" Chapter One

“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong”. 

Most people, when asked what Lincoln’s greatest achievement was, would probably say that he ended slavery. Others might argue that he saved the Union. Both, of course, are true, but I would offer that woven into these two monumental accomplishments is that he set an example of moral courage that all of us should endeavor to emulate. 

Lincoln was not an abolitionist. He was raised in a family where his parents opposed slavery resulting in his strong belief that it was morally wrong. He communicated pragmatically his defense of antislavery as illustrated here in a letter to John Palmer called Fragment on Slavery: 

If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.-why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A? -

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then: the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skim than your own.

You do not mean color exactly? - You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellectual superior to your own.

But say you, it is a question of interest, and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you. (Lincoln, Speeches, letters, Miscellaneous Writings, Library of America, p.303) 

There are over 16,000 books and writings about Lincoln replete with his unwavering position on slavery. He believed that he could not abolish slavery in its entirety as it was protected by the Constitution, so initially, his efforts were focused on prohibiting slavery where it did not exist. A read of his 16 October 1854 speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act at Peoria, Illinois reveals his attempts to recognize that slavery was a complex condition that could not be easily resolved. “…I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation…. When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, then we: I acknowledge the fact…. But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to go into our free territory. (Lincoln, Speeches, letters, Miscellaneous Writings, Library of America, p.315-p.317) 

One can only imagine the pressures, the opposition, and the hostile responses that Lincoln endured for not only holding such strong personal beliefs, but by exercising the moral courage to publicly pronounce the wrongness of slavery. There is no record that shows any reluctance on Lincoln’s part, at any time, to withhold his conviction to his belief that slavery was morally wrong and should not be allowed. From 1854 and until his death in 1865, Lincoln never wavered. As he matured politically his antislavery stance widened. The South was committed to preserving what they believed to be their Constitutional right of the practice of slavery. Several Southern states threatened to secede if Lincoln won the Presidency in 1861. He won and this resulted in the secession of eleven states and the civil war. The defense of slavery and the opposition thereof presented the possibility of an end to an emerging nation. 

 In January 1863, Alexander Stephens, who Lincoln had known since 1848, and had been Lincoln’s hope for Georgia to remain with the Union, announced, “Our new Government is founded upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery is his natural and normal condition.” (H.W. Brands, The Zealot and the Emancipator, p. 346) Such were the deeply ingrained beliefs of those committed to the cause of slavery. Lincoln, now President, and with the civil war in its second year, issued what we know as the Emancipation Proclamation, aware that the freedom it promised was dependent upon a Union victory. If the preservation of the then United States was paramount, Lincoln, one could assume, could have capitulated to the South’s staunch position, but the elimination of slavery was nonnegotiable. “I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world-enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility to treat us as hypocrites-causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity.” (Edward Achorn, Every Drop of Blood, p.22) 

History tells the remainder of Lincoln’s moral strength and courage. In January 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to our Constitution was passed and ratified in December of that same year. Of course, we know that there were years of challenges fraught with Jim Crow laws and such, but it would be very hard to argue against the theory that Lincoln’s moral courage and his willingness to risk all to achieve what he so strongly felt was right and just, not only saved the Union, but provided the foundation for the concept that all people should truly be free. 

I would be remiss to close this chapter without mentioning that a study of Lincoln’s life before his presidency provides the source of the growth and practice of his almost unequalled moral courage. His multiple professional failures and personal losses could have given cause for him to withdraw from life, instead he seemed to rally from each disappointment and become a stronger person, committed to his beliefs and willing to accept the consequences for opposing the status quo.