This Dust Was Once the Man: Lincoln Considered

This dust was once the man,
Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand,
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or
age,
Was saved the Union of these States.
-Whitman, on Lincoln

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It has been a trend in academia to argue over what Abraham Lincoln fought the Civil War for. Yet in fact, Lincoln made it quite clear himself: "I would save the Union."

Whitman gets it right, though. The war simultaneously ended slavery and kept the Union together. One cannot understand Lincoln without also understanding why the fate of slavery was predicated by an intact Union, however.

In his letter to Horace Greeley of August 22, 1862, Lincoln says, "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 other alone I would also do that."

An omitted sentence from the letter reads, "Broken eggs can never be mended, and the longer the breaking proceeds the more will be broken."

Wait -- this all sounds very confusing. Lincoln wished only to save the Union, and cared about slavery merely in the sense that it helped that cause? This letter has been the object of frustration for some, and vindication for others, depending on which side of the issue they stand regarding Lincoln's political thought.

But what did the Union mean to Lincoln? How did the Union even start? Lincoln felt that when Britain unclenched its fist from the colonies, it was only natural that the people had themselves declared independence. What implications does that idea have?

Government -- even state government -- had its power derived only from the single legitimate source of authority: the people. But how?

The idea of the Declaration of Independence is the only way to answer this fully and correctly. Accepting the Declaration's idea that 'all men are created equal' was not popular. In fact, many deemed it superfluous to the Declaration because it "wasn't necessary" to Jefferson's cause of claiming independence--that was Woodrow Wilson's treatment of it, anyway.

Others like Stephen Douglas declared the Declaration only applied to white property holders; this school felt the colonists were merely asserting their own rights to be political equals with citizens of England. Arguments were made against the Declaration on empirical as well as 'moral' grounds. What did Madison, Washington, Hamilton and Jefferson think about slavery? Most of the Founders had slaves! Wasn't it clear that all men, with their differing faculties, weren't equal?

They get it wrong: this has to do with origins. This has to do with history. I might argue it even has to do with religion. When we say men are created equal, we mean that they are all given by their Creator certain rights. They are natural rights, present even before government was around.


Other national documents, viz. the U.S. Constitution, were merely the "silver frame for the golden apple;" they were instruments for the greatest claim that the Union made. The truth is, without the Declaration, the Constitution was a pro-slavery document. However, the natural law inherent to the Declaration is what Lincoln argued to be our greatest law: it is our golden apple. The Union and slavery were definitively incompatible.

This is all really cool and interesting, but what does it tell us about Lincoln's original claim in his letter to Horace Greeley -- that he would "save the Union?"

It's simple: the death of the Union meant the death of the Declaration. The idea of 'all men created equal' would reside only in the memories of a few old men. Men who become dust.