And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

This chapter opens with a discussion of Southern sentiment in 1860, which was strongly anti-Lincoln and the Republican Party. The Democratic platform established in Charleston, South Carolina was, according to Meacham, “unambiguously proslavery, asserting that ‘Congress has no power to abolish slavery in the Territories’” (189). For most Southerners, slavery was an issue under the power of state governments, and the federal government should have no part in its legislation. There were serious divisions with the Democratic Party, though, and there was soon a split. Stephen Douglas was nominated by the reconvened Democratic party in Baltimore. Those who broke away formed a new party and nominated John C. Breckinridge. In the end, there would be four major parties nominating candidates for president, which also included the Constitutional Unionist Party, a moderate group that nominated John Bell of Tennessee.

In the weeks before the election Lincoln remained in Springfield. He did not appear in public much during this time. Hannibal Hamlin of Maine would become his vice-presidential running mate. Meacham describes domestic scene of Lincoln as a husband and father during this period. He was already faced with assassination threats.

Lincoln was victorious in the 1860 election, but the results showed a nation that was deeply and terribly divided. In the Northern states he won 53.9% of the votes (in a four-way race), but in Southern states he received a measly 2.1%. Meacham includes Frederick Douglass’s cautiously optimistic remarks for the country. Meacham notes that, “For Lincoln, the election marked not an end, but a beginning—of stress and strain, of crisis and anguish, of uncertainty and obligation” (196). Lincoln expresses his understanding of the enormity of the responsibility that lies before him.

The election of Lincoln, so strongly opposed in the South, was the final straw for many would-be secessionists. In the coming months, secessionist sentiment in the South reached a fever-pitch, and South Carolina led the way. Lincoln, Meacham notes, misjudged the severity and scale of the secessionist cry.

Meacham opens this chapter with a discussion of the religious and theological responses to the election of Lincoln, the extreme political tension, and the possibility of secession. There were renewed calls for compromise around the issue of slavery, which, according to Meacham, “could have enshrined slavery across the continent—and perhaps across the hemisphere—across the century” (200). Lincoln did not seek to make any such compromise. Meacham writes that he believed the fates of slavery, the Union, and democracy in the world were all deeply intertwined. As such, he was also not going to permit secession.

Kentucky Senator John C. Crittenden proposed compromise legislation (The Crittenden Compromise) to avert the dissolution of the Union or a potential war. Many in the North felt it was far too proslavery, though it did have a broad base of support. On December 20, 1860, months before the president-elect was ready to take office, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union. Many thought that other slaveholding states could be convinced to stay in the Union if a decent compromise could be achieved. Lincoln was lobbied by many in this period (before he took office) to initiate compromise with the South. He would not do so.

Still, Lincoln sought to show the South that on Constitutional grounds he would not seek to eliminate slavery in the states where it was already entrenched. Most Southerners were not buying it. Jefferson Davis, Meacham writes, “argued that the Confederacy was a restoration of the original Constitution” (206). Southern leaders often interpreted the Constitution as a founding document, but not the Declaration of Independence (the one that proposed the equality of all men).

In January the Crittenden Compromise died on the Senate floor. Lincoln’s rhetoric and demeanor turn somber, often invoking religious imagery and biblical phrasing, a tendency in his speeches and writings that would extend to the end of his life. Meacham quotes him: “The political horizon looks dark and lowering; but the people, under Providence, will set all right” (210).

During the months that Lincoln was the president-elect there was mounting fear that he would be assassinated at his inauguration, if not before. The government in Washington, DC worked to maintain order in the city and investigated potential conspiracy to stage a coup. The attorney general at the time did not find it likely that the Union would control the city by the time of the inauguration. A delegation from the recently seceded state of South Carolina came to Washington, hoping to be conferred recognition as an independent nation. Secessionists in the south continued to idealize the possibility of a broad imperialist Confederacy that spread its empire throughout the America.

There was significant pressure on John Breckinridge, the sitting vice president, not to certify the election results in favor of Abraham Lincoln. Although Breckinridge, a Kentuckian (and failed candidate for president in 1860) would go on to serve in the Confederacy, he performed his duty as vice president and certified the election.

At this point Meacham includes a two-page map of the United States in 1861, revealing the divides within the country and the decisive role that the (forthcoming) conflict at Fort Sumter would play in secession. The Confederate States of America, which is usually referred to simply as The Confederacy, initiated the rival government in Montgomery, Alabama in February of 1861. Jefferson Davis was elected the president and Alexander Stephens the vice president.

Lincoln gave a series of speeches on his trip from Springfield to Washington, DC, for his inauguration. He sought not to moralize to the Southerners, even as he strongly disagreed with him. “The man does not live,” Meacham quotes him, “who is more devoted to peace than I am” (221). Still, he would not compromise on the question of slavery and viewed this struggle in deep, religious terms. He eventually made it to DC, doing so in secrecy. The famous detective Allan Pinkerton was brought to the capital to investigate a possible assassination attempt. The Corwin Amendment to the Constitution was proposed in order to ensure the impossibility of abolition by federal amendment or executive decree. It failed. (It would have, ironically, been the 13th Amendment.)

Meacham then reflects on Lincoln’s religious and moral sentiments, including his dedication to universal moral truth claims. Meacham believes that to gain an adequate perspective on Lincoln’s view of his role as the president, it is imperative to understand how he thought of God and providence (226).