Abraham Lincoln: a cautionary note

Here's a good question, from John Stoeffler, writing for the Suburban Journals in the St. Louis area:

"He discriminated against certain groups and believed they should be deported. He favored a strong controlling central government. He jailed newspaper editors and judges and had his military commanders close down those newspapers whose editorials disagreed with his policies. He had one legislator* removed from office and banished from the country. He confiscated private property and firearms. Can you guess the name of this tyrant?

"Was it Saddam Hussein or North Korea's Kim Jong Il? Was it Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse Tung or Josef Stalin? No, he was one of America's most lionized presidents, Abraham Lincoln.

"Shocked? You should be, especially in view of a number of those in the media who, before he is sworn in as our next president, are comparing Obama to Abraham Lincoln."

President-elect Obama has expressed a great deal of admiration for the style and policies of Abraham Lincoln. This is understandable -- after all, Mr. Obama is from Illinois, and I am sure there is much about President Lincoln that would appeal to him.

However, before we move the Lincoln idolatry into high gear, we should heed this cautionary note.

Did President Lincoln free the slaves? Well, sort of. He freed the slaves in the Confederacy. Mr. Stoeffler quotes a London newspaper at the time: "The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States."

As a member of the Illinois legislature, he urged his colleagues to appropriate money to remove all free blacks from the State of Illinois. The following year, in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, he said, "There is a physical difference between (blacks and whites) which ... will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality" As President, he had "no purpose to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists ... and [he had] no inclination to do so."

President-elect Obama's inaugural theme is said to be taken from President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, "A New Birth of Freedom." Perhaps Mr. Obama should take note that when Maryland was preparing to vote on a resolution to let the South secede peacefully, President Lincoln arrested the leadership favoring the motion and prevented the assembly from even debating it. So much for free speech and peaceful assembly.

"A New Birth of Freedom"? Is this part of the change the President-elect promises, or will it prove to be Orwellian irony? We shall soon see.

* Congressman Clement Vallandigham, of Dayton, Ohio.