What Can We Learn From America’s Greatest President?

Glenn Wishnew | Est. 5 minutes

New Testament scholar C.H. Dodd said “Parables are like seeds; they grow in the fertile soil of the listener's mind." A parable offers a structure for the imagination, a vantage point to observe the present and envision the future.

In each of the next 3 stories, Abraham Lincoln faced a difficult leadership situation. My hope is that his example will inspire you when you face similar challenges.

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

Up until 1855, Lincoln’s life was up and down, a cycle of lofty ambitions and crushing setbacks. He starts his own business, but all he earns is debt. He’s elected to the House of Representatives, but he fails to secure reelection. After that defeat, Lincoln retreats from politics.

The Kansas-Nebraska act reawakens Lincoln’s political ambitions. Extending slavery into the western territories through ‘popular sovereignty’ was not just legally objectionable for Lincoln, but morally dubious as well. In the Illinois State elections of 1854, the anti-Nebraska Whigs earn a narrow majority in the legislature thanks in part to Lincoln’s leadership. Lincoln then leverages that momentum and runs for Senator.

To win, he needs to receive 51 votes from the state legislature. Lincoln’s opponents are two Democrats: a pro-Nebraska candidate James Shields and an anti-Nebraska candidate Lyman Trumbull. Lincoln is the overwhelming favorite among the majority who oppose the Nebraska act.

On the first ballot, Lincoln receives 45 votes, Shields gets 41 and Trumbull earns 5. If Lincoln can persuade the Trumbull Democrats to align with him, he’ll win the race.

Six further ballots are taken without a winner. At this point, Lincoln can call for another vote hoping Trumbull’s 5 will budge. Or Lincoln can withdraw his candidacy, and his supporters will migrate to Trumbull. If neither him nor Trumbull can get to 51 votes, the pro-Nebraska, pro-slavery Democrats will select the next U.S. Senator.

The outcomes are laid out for Lincoln: persuade Trumbull’s voters and win, fail to persuade them and risk slavery’s expansion westward, or withdraw from the race and forfeit a rare opportunity for a Senate seat.

Lincoln withdraws, stating that the “cause [anti-slavery] in this case is to be preferred” to his personal candidacy. Lincoln’s friends are incensed by the injustice of the majority candidate dropping out for a minority candidate. Lincoln’s political allies believe he won’t receive another opportunity for such a high office.

Later that same day, Lincoln attended Trumbull’s victory party greeting the senator-elect with a handshake and a smile. Moved by the gesture, Trumbull and his campaign manager Norman Judd will support Lincoln for the rest of his career.

Both Trumbull and Judd will go on to play critical roles in Lincoln’s 1860 presidential victory.

Blessed Are The Meek 

Losing to Abraham Lincoln was the worst defeat in Salmon Chase’s political career. Chase, the wealthy, Dartmouth-educated, Ohio Governor never understood how he lost to a gangly-looking, self-educated, political novice.

When Lincoln offered Chase the Secretary of the Treasury position, he replied “I desire no position & could not easily reconcile myself to the acceptance of a subordinate one.”[i] Lincoln persisted, shrewdly calculating that Chase’s hunger for power would overcome his wounded ego. The president-elect guessed right.

By February 1864, Chase saw an opportunity to become the Republican presidential nominee. Two dynamics carved out an opening: first, the war had gone on longer than anyone predicted and second, Lincoln was reluctant to take a harsh stance on southern reconstruction. At a time when one-term presidencies were the norm, Lincoln could not assume that his party would renominate him.

Buoyed by radical Republicans and raw ambition, Chase formed a campaign advocacy group. The Pomeroy committee, named after senator Samuel Pomeroy, distributed a ‘private’ document to over 100 leading Republicans throughout the North.

It read: “Even were the reelection of Mr. Lincoln desirable, it is practically impossible.” Lincoln’s war would “continue to languish,” the country would go bankrupt, and the “dignity of the nation” would suffer. To avoid the impending disaster, Republicans must turn to “the one man with more of the qualities needed in a President, during the next four years, than are combined in any other available candidate – Salmon P Chase.”[ii] To a northern electorate tired of war and eager for revenge, Chase’s platform of quick victory and harsh penalties for the South had appeal.

His team then leaked the anti-Lincoln periodical to the public, hoping to apply further pressure on the President.

It didn’t work.

The public and the press sided with Lincoln. Even The New York Times, a paper often critical of Lincoln’s presidency, said “The faith of the people in the sound judgment and honest purpose of Mr. Lincoln is as tenacious as if it were a veritable instinct. Nothing can overcome it or seriously weaken it.”[iii] Harper’s Weekly agreed. “Among all the prominent men in our history from the beginning none have ever shown the power of understanding the popular mind as accurately as Mr. Lincoln.”[iv] The politicians fell in line. State after state pledged public support for Lincoln’s renomination.

Just days later, Chase withdrew his presidential bid.

In the aftermath, Lincoln’s allies presumed he would remove Chase as Treasurer. Lincoln’s friend David Davis said “I would dismiss him [from] the cabinet if it killed me.”[v]

Lincoln informs Chase that he will decide his future as a cabinet member based solely on Chase’s “public service.”[vi] And at that time, Lincoln said “I do not perceive occasion for a change.”[vii]

Eight months later, Abraham Lincoln would appoint Salmon P. Chase to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

March 4th, 1865 was a day set for celebration. Recent months afforded many victories: Lincoln won re-election in a landslide, General Sherman’s men burned Atlanta and went on to capture Colombia, South Carolina. The war that couldn’t end fast enough was in the final straight away.

An estimated fifty thousand people went to Washington D.C. to hear their president’s second inaugural speech. The festivities began awkwardly. As rain poured down on the crowd, newly elected Vice President Andrew Johnson gave his speech “in a state of manifest intoxication.”[viii]

When Lincoln took Johnson’s place on the platform, journalist Noah Brooks said “The sun, which had been obscured all day, burst forth in its unclouded meridian splendor and flooded the spectacle with glory and light.”[ix]

Lincoln began by recounting the circumstances surrounding his first inaugural speech: 

“On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it – all sought to avert it.” Both North and South “deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.” Both sides wished “for an easier triumph…Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other.”

 Like a post-game speech where the winning coach acknowledges the opposing team’s effort before switching his tone to triumphant victor, the audience waits for Lincoln to bask in the glory of a long-fought victory.  

They wait in vain. The war is not a victory for the righteous north over the sinful south. Instead, Lincoln insists that God has punished the entire nation for her sins.

“If God wills that [the war] continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

Lincoln believed that his address would “wear as well as – perhaps better than anything”[x] he had written, though he did not believe it would be immediately popular.

“Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them.”[xi]

A Small Window unto A Great Vista

A parable, according to G.K. Chesterton, is “a small window that opens onto a great vista."

The remaining question is: looking through these parables as a window, what is the great vista that opens before you?

Endnotes

[i] Team of Rivals, 605.

[ii] Ibid., 606

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid., 607.

[vi] Ibid., 608.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Ibid., 698.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Ibid., 700

[xi] Ibid.

© Glenn Wishnew | This article was first published in Lakelight Monthly, June 2024 Edition