A recent article, Frederick Douglass, the activist who would not 'grow up' offers a frame for evaluating the repeated criticism of President Obama from many members of the left. This article deals with President Lincoln as assessed by Frederick Douglass, not as a historian many years after the facts but as a witness to those events.
One of the most common misrepresentations of history is the oft repeated mantra that Lincoln freed the slaves. He didn't. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves that lived within the borders of states that were in rebellion against the Union; it did not apply to any slaves in the border states that were still loyal to the Union nor Confederate states which had already come under Union control; President Lincoln did not wish to lose the support of those slave owning states. The goal was to preserve the Union. As the Confederacy was not under the President's control, it did not accept Lincoln's offer to agree to the emancipation of slaves in exchange for compensation. The reality is that the Emancipation Proclamation was a grand gesture and of great symbolic value but it didn't free any slaves. [see for ex. pbs.org, thinkquest, national archives] In the year prior to the EP, 1862, Congress had passed a law that freed any Confederate slaves who escaped to the Union states and added those slaves to the Union's military ranks. Slavery did not officially end in this country until 1865 with the passage of the 13th amendment. [Id.]
The factual details don't lessen what Lincoln accomplished. I offer this history lesson because I think that the adherence to mythology is interfering with the ability of progressives to get on the same page and work at the business of re-electing Barack Obama. Lincoln was no cowboy riding in on a white horse. He compromised on what Frederick Douglass and the abolitionists saw as the most significant cause of the Civil War, ending slavery. He did so because the Union could not afford to lose the slave owning border states to the Confederacy.
In 1862, Horace Greely, editor of The New York Tribune addressed an editorial to Lincoln in which he suggested that Lincoln's administration lacked direction and resolve in its war efforts. Lincoln responded with a letter to Greely that few seem to accurately recall:
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. [Lincoln letter]Frederick Douglass took issue with Lincoln's willingness to abide slavery if that was necessary to preserve the Union. However, Douglass was also pragmatic and eventually came to respect Lincoln's seemingly measured tread.
In April 1876, in a speech delivered at the unveiling of the Freedmen's Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, Douglass said of Lincoln:
...I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible...Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined. [emphasis added] [Douglass' Oration]Frederick Douglass was an activist and activists do not have to answer to a constituency, nor do they have to play well with others. There are those who no doubt will dismiss my evaluations of activism vs. politics as narrow and cynical. I intend it as neither, but simply pragmatic.
Activism is an essential part of political and societal change but the demand that such activism be regularly and blatantly engaged in by this President is to ask him to go beyond the bounds of his office. I chose to focus on Lincoln because of sheer laziness. Lincoln has been a hobby of mine for years and I didn't have to do a lot of research. However, similar issues can be raised with FDR's presidency.
Douglass' evaluation of Lincoln doesn't diminish the man at all but it does make it clear that no man walks on water and offers a prism that reflects how I believe history will also view Obama. Just as was Lincoln, Obama is the President, not an activist. His responsibilities are vastly different than those of an activist. I believe that far too many are demanding that Obama take on a mythical role that no president has ever exercised.
Bachmann just won the straw vote election out of a field of Republicans, any of whom is saner than she. I find that frightening. Rather than contributing to the constant criticism of President Obama and the continual refusal to acknowledge all that has been accomplished (an extensive list) our common goal should be to ensure that the President has a second term to work towards our goals. Douglass voted for Lincoln in 1864 in spite of his concerns and supported Lincoln's campaign. We have a president who understands the system and who is working that system with every tool at his disposal. What we need are activists; the campaign slogan has always been, "Yes we can." What have you done lately?
I've long said that heroes are neither born nor made, but are mostly invented. We seem to have needed heroes badly from the earliest recorded times and probably before that.
ReplyDeleteLincoln, like Noah, was at best a righteous man "for his generation" but we need him to be more than that. Of course had his goal been immediate justice for the enslaved rather than preserving the Union, both might have been lost battles.
I'm reminded of how the Right told us we thought of Obama as the second coming; worshiping him mindlessly for mindless reasons and it still offends me. I saw him as educated and smart and I tend to value those things above swagger and macho and certainly tinhorn patriotism. But that doesn't make for heroism and as you say, we need activists.
Dr. King didn't end discrimination -- and civil rights didn't improve without a lot of compromise and without the help of seriously flawed people of all sorts. That's always the story and has been the American story since our first days as an independent nation.
If anyone actually looked at Barack Obama as a savior, they were abdicating responsibility. As always, no one can save anyone all by himself. We have to do most of the work ourselves and these days it's no longer popular to ask what you can do for your country -- or even to acknowledge that it might be a good thing.
Cynical pessimism - a thing of which I'm guilty - is a bit self-fulfilling.
Anyway, when I'm elected, you'll be on the Supreme Court.
Brava Sheria! Thank you for this fine post. I'm going to cross-post it at PE.
ReplyDeleteI've rebutted those on the right who call Mr. Obama "The One" or the "Messiah," and remind them that is was THEY who labeled this president, not us.
Lincoln also called to the WH a group of prominent African Americans from northern states and suggested that they become the leaders of freed slaves and emigrate to a Caribbean Island to set up their own country! These leaders were rightly appalled at the suggestion from Lincoln that they leave the country of their birth and rejected his idea. Lincoln came to see the error of that idea.
Extremists in both major political parties now seem to be converging in their childish and inaccurate assessments of Mr. Obama. But once a meme is pinned onto a president, it is difficult to unpin.
That being said, I have vowed to not go all wobbly on this president and will continue to regard him through clear, pragmatic colored glasses.
Thanks again for this.
I get tired of these constant comparisons to Lincoln. Obama is no Lincoln. Never will be, and Lincoln's situation cannot come close to Obama's situation. These false comparisons are to try to make Obama something greater than he is. Deal with his failures instead of whitewashing him to look like Lincoln.
ReplyDeleteSheria,
ReplyDeleteLincoln has long been a favorite of mine, too. Douglass was indeed the model of a wise activist, neither given to rapturous, vacuous admiration nor to stupid disillusionment and condemnation. He saw Abraham Lincoln as a vehicle for progress, not as a demigod. Lincoln was the right man for the job: since his very election was considered by Southern slaveholders "cause" enough for the South to secede, there was nothing he could do to prevent war, but throughout the conflict he kept from doing things that would have rendered his administration powerless to act, and acted with boldness when the occasion demanded. Douglass recognized Lincoln's quality. As an aside, I would give the Emancipation Proclamation great credit – even though it was a symbolic gesture as you say, when we consider that the man who signed it was the same one who, years before becoming president, had quoted the Bible's line "A house divided against itself cannot stand" and had said that a nation "cannot survive half slave and half free," I think everyone living at the time knew where things were headed.
With the current president, I try to give him a lot more credit than the naysayers – he's a good man beset by cynical liars, knaves, and scoundrels. A considerable portion of the "Right," as far as I am concerned, despises this country's institutions and best traditions as thoroughly as any foreign enemy could; that same Right and its corporate media supporters deliberately stir up and misinform hordes of the most ignorant and frightened/belligerent Americans, and it is no easy thing dealing with any of them. So-called progressives often have a hard time grasping the simple possibility that NOT EVERYTHING PRESIDENT OBAMA SAYS IS NECESSARILY WHAT HE THINKS, AND NOT EVERYTHING HE DOES IS EXACTLY WHAT HE WOULD DO IF ALL HE NEEDED TO CONSIDER WAS WHAT WOULD BE "ABSOLUTELY THE RIGHT THING " IN A STATIC, PRESSURE-FREE SITUATION.
Okay already, there are times when I find President Obama's pronouncements about the GOP's alleged good faith frustrating. I sincerely hope he doesn't believe any of it because he's dealing with an opponent that invariably treats kindness as weakness and tries to kick out its front teeth. Given the sheer hostility, dishonesty and outright wickedness of the opposition, I'm not willing to judge Obama harshly in the middle of his first term in office. He's managed to do a couple of impressive things, and perhaps dropped the ball on a few others. He's no fool, but he's not perfect.
I DO think a strong rearticulation of liberal values would ultimately serve him and us better than basically accepting the rhetorical premises of the opposition. Millions of people are anxious and they want bold action on the economy, or at least a willingness to stand up and defend something that makes sense. Since their relative lack of grounding in political history leaves them open to the lies and bankrupt theories of a determined opposition, it will take focus and considerable passion and skill to bring them around to a decent course of action. A dose of "can-do idealism" might actually be good politics right now, instead of dour acceptance of the present's limited possibilities and Waste Land-like landscape. Certainly the deficit-hawk route is bad for the country since we're faced with an immediate problem that threatens to tank us in the short AND long terms.
Perhaps the best thing any of us can do is not foolishly sit out the election, or lament the president's perceived shortcomings, etc., but rather DO WHAT TIME AND ENERGY PERMIT BY WAY OF GETTING HIM A DEMOCRATIC HOUSE NEXT TIME AROUND. That's where activists might make a real difference. The Senate's going to be tough, but maybe we can hang on there instead of ending up with a "Majority Leader McConnell." The House is where the action's going to be.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteI get tired . . . Deal with his failures instead of whitewashing him to look like Lincoln.
Perhaps you should actually read the article before projecting your neurotic fantasies onto other people's arguments and making a damn fool out of your pretensious self. You don't seem to have a clue what it actually said and nobody here gives a flying shit about what tires you or interests you or anything about the moronic, bitter, deluded and ignorant racist shit that emanates from your miserable,pointless and worthless life - soon may it end.
You can compare me with Doctor Ben Marble, if you like, because I'm telling you to go fuck yourself, you piece of stinking, self-important dogshit.
Dino:
ReplyDeleteSince their relative lack of grounding in political history leaves them open to the lies and bankrupt theories of a determined opposition,
Well "no shit," as Lao Tse said. Vide supra for an example.
Capt. Fogg:
ReplyDelete"Perhaps you should actually read the article before projecting your neurotic fantasies onto other people's arguments and making a damn fool out of your pretensious self. You don't seem to have a clue what it actually said and nobody here gives a flying shit about what tires you or interests you . . ."
Classic. Simply classic.
Already commented and shared Sheria's article on FB. Another kind of classic.
So tell us what you really think, Capt. Fogg – don't hold back out of delicacy (saw-toothed dinosaur grin). But all seriousness aside, not bothering to read what one is commenting on opens up worlds of possibilities. In capable hands, it allows a critic to follow Wilde's dictum that "the critic's task is to see the object as in itself it really is not."
ReplyDeleteBut of course reading Sheria's entry would be no fun at all because then one would have to acknowledge that the point clearly wasn't to draw a patriarchal Abe Lincoln beard on one Barack Obama but rather, in part, to provide some historical perspective on how we tend to mythologize and demi-deify our illustrious past presidents to the detriment of those who come after them. You and I got that, but I guess that only proves what sticks in the mud we are....
Genius, Capt. Telling dissenters to "fuck yourself" is really going to change the direction and civility of discourse. (See Post a Comment notice below.)
ReplyDeleteCaptain, I confess in front of all here that I've got a major crush on you! When I read anonymous' comment, my first thought was, did you read the damn post?
ReplyDeleteEdge, yeah I know that civility is important but it's hard to be civil to folks who post comments anonymously that don't actually address the content of the blog post. Anonymous doesn't dissent with my post; he or she either didn't read it or has some serious reading comprehension issues. Anonymous has no interest in civil discourse; he or she simply wanted to make a comment and instead of reading my post, made an assumption as to my point of view.
OK, so all together now, let's tell that bastard to fuck himself. The prick deserves it. (Well, I feel better now!)
ReplyDeleteSheria,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this article. In addition to your historical perspective on the lessons of pragmatism, we should also take into account the differences between this president and the disaster years of the last presidency. How soon we forget the belligerent, bellicose and swaggering style of the Bush/Cheney administration and how they abused the public trust during eight long years of Mission Unaccomplished. Little noticed is the far more measured and statesman-like tone set by President Obama. There are times when I wish President Obama would lash out and put the bigots and bullies in their place; but then I must remind myself that this president seeks a higher standard of public discourse than the previous administration. Considering the vitriol and obstruction arrayed against him, we underestimate Obama's fortitude and strength of character.
Captain,
Can this fatwa be arranged:
Anon,
May a flock of ten thousand incontinent, salmonella-infested birds pursue you like the Eumenides.
Captain,
How did I do?
Sheria, I still take exception to the treatment of Anonymous, whether a troll or not. While he/she did not present a sophisticated response, he/she did stay on topic and did not like (and like is a fair enough response) the comparison of Obama to Lincoln. And I might challenge that comparison as well.
ReplyDeleteAs to your comment on Obama that, "His responsibilities are vastly different than those of an activist. I believe that far too many are demanding that Obama take on a mythical role that no president has ever exercised," that is patently untrue. Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Eisenhower (especially in his farewell speech on the MIC) and the dead Kennedys all took on a somewhat mythical role in challenging both the American public and Congress to do better. As did Obama himself in his presidential campaign.
Yes, there are pragmatic concerns. Machiavelli has been well read here. I'm just telling you that, from where I'm sitting, I feel that Obama could be doing a much better job connecting with Justin and Jayne Doe. Perhaps you don't think that matters, or that he actually IS connecting. So be it.
Edge:
ReplyDeleteYou're right, I allowed his post to appear and I allowed my temper to flare. Mea Culpa. None the less, he deserved worse, the illiterate bastard.
I'm surrounded by such people who enjoy venting their lynch mob impulses - literally surrounded and my thin plating of politeness now has holes in it. Perhaps I should thank the God I don't believe in that this wasn't a personal confrontation because that would not have gone well.
I'm fresh out of Eumenides, but I'm good at improvising.
I understand Capt. We inhabit culturally different realities. But the winters are cold up here, though they do kill off the vermin.
ReplyDeleteSheria, back to the point, I like Douglass very much, and appreciate your pointing out the instrumental differences between governance and activism. But as most of us, you excluded, are not in the business of legislating, we must be the voices of activism, which has many flavours, from radical to pragmatic. But again I'm preaching to the converted.
Edge,
ReplyDeleteIt's okey-dokey to stop making the suggestion that Sheria's post made Obama out to be the Second Coming of Abe. She does no such thing. Her point was a more general and appropriate one; I have already summarized it above.
As for Obama connecting or not connecting with ordinary people, that's an interesting point. I watched his town hall-style meeting yesterday, and there WERE indeed a few points at which I just wanted to scream. Some poor woman said she was in the grip of lung cancer and had been turned down for disability by the Social Security Administration, and the president gave her a long, somewhat repetitive non-response about how we need to protect Social Security for everyone. He sure blew that one! Lung cancer is a terrible thing, and this lady may be dying -- she's worried about ending up sleeping on a park bench in what could be her final illness, and deserved something better than "Gee, isn't Social Security a great program? Let's preserve it for our children's children's grandchildren and their pet goldfish and THEIR extended families in goldfish bowls all across the nation." Okay, I made that quotation up, but the real thing was just as bad. Barack tends to do that -- typical college professor, head in the abstraction-clouds and not really listening to what people say to him. I can relate -- it takes a few years before you can even hear what others say when you're at the front of a big lecture hall. But "teachers" have to learn that skill sometime, and I felt bad for that poor, sick lady hoping for a specific response to what is, for her, a life-or-death issue. What's the point of holding one of these folksy town-hall meetings if all you're going to do is pump campaign-happy generalities into your audience? Or maybe that is the point of them, but it shouldn't be. Pipe down and LISTEN to the person who's addressing you already! When you do that, something just short of magic can happen.
Sheria,
ReplyDeleteI opine that what may have triggered the Capt.'s response was the possibility of the response being a knee-jerk attempt to demean and dismiss Obama as president. You know -- The ONE, the Messiah, He Who Must Be Obeyed, that whole dishonest Tea-Partyist meme. I don't know if that's what poor Gaius Publius Anonymous meant to do, but there you have it, maybe. I thought your post was excellent.
Edge,
ReplyDeletePerhaps we should make a distinction between "mythical" versus "unrealistic expectations." Mythologizing is usually reserved for deceased presidents, and the tendency is to create a hero caricature far larger in legend than the person was in life – to attribute feats of accomplishment that are embellished, even fictionalized.
The term Unrealistic Expectations is reserved for current office holders, and the term implies exactly what it states: A tendency to expect a sitting president to be savior and deliverer-in-chief from all evils in the world, to be expert in all things, to invest in the ONE all our hopes and aspirations far beyond what can be realistically accomplished. Almost all political scientists agree on this point: All sitting president in recent memory have been subject to unrealistic expectations to some degree.
Finally, one more word …
Demonizing – another term reserved for sitting presidents usually hurled by the opposition. Similar to mythologizing, but opposite in purpose, the intent is to create an evil caricature far more sinister in perception than in reality.
Given the above definitions, the left is guilty of “unrealistic expectations” and the Tea Party is guilty of “demonizing.” The purpose of a scholarly analysis is to examine the evidence objectively in order to avoid the use of false, misleading or excessive rhetoric.
New subject:
With regards to the anonymous troll, a comment without an associated name, moniker, or linked blog deserves no special consideration. Hostile remarks by nameless persons are akin to the behavior of fly-by shooters. Years ago, I received death threats … yes death threats … and taunts appearing in my email box on Christmas Day! I don’t a give crap about anonymous commenters.
There are guidelines with regards to anger management:
1 – Is the tirade worth it (sometimes it cleanses the soul)?
2 – Do you run a risk of injuring an innocent person (trolls are not innocent)?
2 – Will your words or deeds result in self-sabotage?
In this case, I do not think any harm has been done.
Well, Octo, while I do think those terms are sometimes clear, it's often true that they turn into a simultaneous mélange of mythologized-unrealistically expected-demonized characteristics applied at once to the same subject—especially in what Christopher Lasch first termed the modern Personality Cult. It comes with the turf.
ReplyDeleteAs to anonymous, well, yes, if those are the terms of engagement here. I guess if one goes unnamed one gets depersonalized. Death threats are no joke.
Edge:
ReplyDeleteI've actually had death threats in my years of blogificating and from letters to the Editor as well.
I try never to respond in kind and I rarely ever kill anyone, but the frustration of living where the anti-Obama hostility smells worse than the mud flats at low tide and it's there around the clock. You only get two low tides a day. You can't argue rationally - they don't want to hear it and don't hear it and perhaps Obama's biggest failure is that, like me, he grew up getting used to the idea that good arguments and solid facts will win an argument. With these trolls, some of whom actually get paid per post, nothing works, they don't care and they're too stupid to know they lost anyway.
I admit, it felt good for a few minutes, but I should not have allowed him access. Mea Maxima Culpa.
Sheria:
ReplyDeleteI'm not ignoring your comment, but I'm just shy. ;-)
Dino:
ReplyDelete"Rational, humane people are always at a disadvantage when dealing with belligerent morons, rigid ideologues and fanatics -- their very reasonableness is turned into a weapon to be used against them."
That, for me, is the great unlearned lesson of history: from the Disputation at Tortosa, to the Beer Hall Putsch. Same old, same old.
Oh yes, and "I opine that what may have triggered the Capt.'s response was the possibility of the response being a knee-jerk attempt to demean and dismiss Obama as president."
ReplyDeleteIt was that and also an instance of a pretentious twit not knowing his place. I know that no one here really needs assistence in dealing with such vermin, least of all Sheria, but the arrogant, condescending tone is the most infuriating characteristic of bigots of all kinds and it gets my goat avery single time.
None of these cowards would dare say a word unless they were part of a like-mindless mob or far out of reach - and as I think we agree, you can't defeat them by any means less than lethal, so the frustration just builds and the anger simmers like Vesuvius staring down at the depravity of Pompei.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteYep -- as for the unlearned lesson, it has a way of always making the benighted reasonables look like Charlie Brown, doesn't it? Be reasonable, and you might as well walk around with a sign on your shirt saying "Do me a favor -- steal my lunch money."
As for the pretentious right-wing twittery, we medium-large predatory dinos have a novel way of dealing with that kind of human: "Waiter, I'd like the rack of religious bigot extra rare with some godbother dipping sauce on the side. To drink? A nice chianti. Oh -- and you can add a takeout portion of barbecued 'Bagger ribs, please." But I kid the bigots and teabaggers, with affection I kid them (suspiciously wide toothsome grin).
Hmm. Must be National Hypermanic Week somewhere in the northern provinces.
ReplyDelete?? Octo, you telling me it's time to go out for a smoke?
ReplyDeleteWow. Spend one day in airports and you miss the whole party. This thread has been great fun to read. As always, I'm bragging on Sheria, linking and hat-tipping wherever I go on the interwebs.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, I'm reading both the lines and their interstices to learn where each of my Dem friends are coming down in the divisive post-debt-ceiling atmosphere. Frustration is wearing on so many of our kind, polarizing us in a way that does the Republicans' dirty work for them. For me, it will be important to see how The Zone handles both anonymous naysayers and its own internal debates.