The Instructor of the BNU course on SOTG blithely stated that Lincoln was known to be an atheist who used God for oratorical effect. Since I don't know how long it will take him to get back to me on this, I thought I'd put it to Hatrack. So, if we throw out all evidence that Lincoln thinks someone else might have seen, what evidence are we left with to suppose whether he believed in God or not?
Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :
Does it make a difference whether he believed in God or not? Not trying to be snotty, I'm just wondering why it matters.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I think the point would be you can't know. We can't know he definitely believed in God anymore than this instructor can know he was an athiest.
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
Because the instructor of this online course just said it like it something all intelligent people know.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Are there any personal letters he sent to friends or family?
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
For the longest time people said they had proof he was gay to. Seems to me that people just can't accept that once in our history we had a truly great man as president.
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
Oh, yeah, "A house divided" which I assume aired on PBS was big on the "might be gay" hints. Which is why I thought, if there is evidence that he is an atheist, I'm sure they would have brought it up.
Posted by Portabello (Member # 7710) on :
Either that, or different people want to claim a truly great man as a member of their group.
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
PBS think tank: Who was Lincoln? This should be interesting. It dates from 1996, the heyday of revisionist histories. I did mean to read the sandberg biography and not just search the net, but for some reason the software won't stay resident on Windows XP. And I'm lazy.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I fail to see how either being an athiest or being gay would make Lincoln not a great man. And I think that's pretty much the point of these relatively pointless things. Groups of people who are told that they are intrinsically bad want to claim an honored historical figure as one of their own. They care and the people who think that they are just obviously bad care, but I don't see why I should.
Posted by IdemosthenesI (Member # 862) on :
Can't we just accept it on faith that Lincoln was an atheist? There may not be any real evidence to back it up, or there might be tons. None of that matters if I believe fervently enough that he didn't believe in anything fervently.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Seems to me that people just can't accept that once in our history we had a truly great man as president."
I'd suggest it's the contrary. To some people, he would not be a truly great man unless he were an atheist. That said, I've seen ample personal correspondence from Lincoln which suggested that, yes, his religious faith was largely a sham. Particularly as a youth, Lincoln was loudly and stridently anti-christian, and only toned it down when people suggested it would hurt his political career.
[ April 29, 2005, 12:46 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
This part is funny:
quote: Well, I think he would be dismayed at the lack ofconfidence in government because, after all, his whole campaign, hiswhole life was devoted to affirming the importance of a union. That'sgovernment. And nowadays, I'm afraid we find a little too much ofwhat I would call a neo-anarchism, a belief that government's evil atany level.
MR. FONER: That's Lincoln's own party, primarily.
MR. BOORSTIN: Well --
MR. FONER: He would have been surprised by the Republicans thatare all saying this.
MR. BOORSTIN: -- I think he would have been surprised to hearRepublicans saying it.
MR. WATTENBERG: Do you buy that? I don't want to let that gounchallenged. I mean, would Lincoln be a liberal Democrat today?
MR. DONALD: No. I think, first of all, Lincoln was a party man. Hestuck to his political affiliation. He was a Whig after the WhigParty died. He would have been a Republican after the RepublicanParty may in turn die. I don't think he would ever have switched, no.He did not like Jacksonians in general. He would not have been aDemocrat. He would have --
Keeping in mind that this was written in 1996 Back when republicans were conservatives.
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
This interview is more specific. I guess my upset is in the idea that he uses God for oratorical purposes. If he does so, he would be both lying and taking the name of God in vain.
quote:RAY SUAREZ: A lot has been written speculatively about Lincoln's religious life. A lot of attention paid to the fact that he wasn't regularly churched, not brought up within the walls of a particular denomination. But you place him squarely in a denomination, under the influence of specific preachers and teachers of the time. This is a real departure from what previous people have written about Lincoln's religious life.
RONALD WHITE: It is. And I did not start there, but as I sought again to ask the question, "what are the antecedents, what are the sources for this speech?" I came especially to discover that the minister here at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Phineas Densmore Gurley, was a forgotten resource. And I was able to place Lincoln at several of Gurley's sermons where we have the complete text of the sermon, and ask, what was he preaching? And I'm suggesting that Lincoln's gravitation to the meaning of providence, we can see much of this in the preaching that Lincoln heard.
RAY SUAREZ: And really it's less of a mystery what his mind was religiously...
RONALD WHITE: It's less of a mysterious. I have... when I teach at UCLA, my students would say I'm spiritual but not religious. Well, perhaps Lincoln was theological but not religious. For whatever reasons, he did not identify himself as a member of a denomination, but he did attend two Presbyterian churches where he heard a rather consistent, thoughtful approach to the theme of providence.
Of course, Academic history is a lot like science with thesis, antithesis, and the synthesis kind of arrived at by what sticks to the succeeding generation.
Anyway, I think the idea that Lincoln is an atheist is just wishful thinking by atheists. The idea that he is an evangelical christian would be equally so. He was contemporary with Mormonism so we know he wouldn't have been that "if only he'd known".
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Googling this, I learned a few things I did not know. Apparently Lincoln wrote a book while a lawyer that argued against the dissemination of the Christian faith and attempted to disprove its validity, but a friend talked him out of publishing it; copies still exist, but the book was never released. When he ran for Congress against a reverend, he was called a blasphemer and an infidel; specifically, it was said that he had publicly said that it was most likely that Christ was just another illegitimate child. When asked why he did not refute these charges of blasphemy, Lincoln replied that it was because they were accurate and too easily proven.
The mention of God in the Emancipation Proclamation was added at the recommendation of his cabinet. When asked about his Thanksgiving addresses to the nation by Judge Nelson, he replied, "Oh, this is some of Seward's nonsense. It pleases the fools!"
In fact, he seems to be a very obvious skeptic. On the matter of being approached -- repeatedly -- by people claiming to know the will of God, especially as regarded his war on the South, he wrote, "I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by religious men who are certain they represent the Divine Will. I hope it will not be irreverent in me to say, that if it is probable that God would reveal His will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me."
------
"I guess my upset is in the idea that he uses God for oratorical purposes."
Why? Every president since Washington has done it.
[ April 29, 2005, 01:01 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
There's an interesting article on Beliefnet with an author of a book on Lincoln. Short version: Lincoln was very private about his beliefs in his later years and so most of what people say is guesswork. This author's own personal belief is that Lincoln was an agnostic who struggled with the issues of belief/nonbelief:
quote:Guelzo calls Lincoln "a typical Victorian doubter" like "Moby Dick" author Herman Melville. According to fellow writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville could "neither believe or be comfortable in his unbelief."
The article has some nice info on Linoln's early upbringing in a Calvinist household and his discovery of Enlightenment authors.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Just because he didn't believe in Christ, doesn't mean he didn't believe in God.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote: I hope it will not be irreverent in me to say, that if it is probable that God would reveal His will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me."
He definitely understood the idea of stewardship. I love this statement.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Every President including Washington.
Washington was very closed about his personal religious beliefs, but while his public speeches often exalted Christianity, his personal correspondence does not (I believe the sum total of mentions of Jesus in hundreds of pages of documents is zero, for instance).
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
quote: For the longest time people said they had proof he was gay to. Seems to me that people just can't accept that once in our history we had a truly great man as president.
OH BECAUSE GAYS CAN'T BE GREAT MEN, IS THAT IT????
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Yeah, Russell. When I meant "since Washington," I really meant "since he was inaugurated," not "since he left office."
I suppose I could have said "every president," but that would have lacked panache. *grin*
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Lincoln was a social progressive in the 1800s. On that alone, it's a pretty good bet he wasn't a Christian in a traditional sense. There's plenty of other things that suggest this as well. I thought this was reasonably well-known. Apparently I was mistaken.
I was talking about whether or not he was actually an atheist instead of a deist or some such..
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Abolitionism was famously a Christian cause in the North. It is not axiomatic that he was atheist because he was a progressive.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
quote: OH BECAUSE GAYS CAN'T BE GREAT MEN, IS THAT IT????
Of course they can. But the people saying he was gay don't appear to share this opinion.
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
HOMOPHOBE!!!!
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Yeah kat, I wasn't talking about abolitionism (although I'd dispute it being famously a Christian thing). I was talking about social progressivism, which, from what I know, was not a hallmark of most mainstream Christian sects in the 1800s. Maybe you have information that contradicts this that you could share.
edit: I should say was opposed by most mainstream Christian sects in the 1800s.
[ April 29, 2005, 04:59 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Why would you say that? The people who brought up "evidence" of Lincoln being Gay were doing so in a negative manner. Its a shame that people would think that way, but they do.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
You don't consider abolitionism to be a socially progressive cause?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
It's a cause, not an orientation. There are plenty of reasons to support any one cause. That doesn't make you a progressive.
edit: Or what fugu said, much better than I.
[ April 29, 2005, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Being solely abolitionist at the time didn't constitute being a social progressive, though many social progressives were abolitionists.
Social progressive implies abolitionist does not mean abolitionist implies social progressive.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
So someone who supports a socially progressive cause is not actually socially progressive?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
There are republicans who are for gay marriage even though most people for gay marriage are democrats.
Does supporting gay marriage make someone an adherent to democrat's ideals?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
So you are using socially progressive as group name instead of a descriptor? Socially Progressive instead of progressive in regards to social things.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
It's a not an intrinsicly social progressive cause. It's a cause that social progressives believed in, but was supported by other groups of people for other, non-progressive reasons as well.
Regardless, even if the mainstream Christians believed in the socially progressive rationale for abolition, that doesn't change the fact that they opposed most of the other things on the progressive agenda and the progressive orientation in and of itself.
edit: There's a reason why most social reformers of the 19th century regarded religion in general and Christianity specifically as the enemy of progress.
[ April 29, 2005, 05:14 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
So socially progressive is all or nothing?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Note I said adherent to democrat's ideals, not member of the democratic party.
A set of positions such as describe the social progressive's position in the period we're discussing is not some thing where agreement with one, a few, or even all necessarily means membership in the movement (though if one agrees with all the rate of membership in the movement was likely near 100%). Social progressivism implies a common agreement on the principles motivating those positions. Someone who wants slavery ended so all the blacks can be sent back to africa because he hates looking at them (and such people did exist at this time) is not a social progressive despite supporting a socially progressive opinion.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
So, it is all or nothing.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
*sigh* No, it's not all or nothing. However, Lincoln supported causes and followed an orientation towards things that most mainstream Christian sects were against during that time period. These causes and this orientation were considered socially progressive. Thus, when I said that he was a social progressive and that this made it a good bet that he wasn't a mainstream Christian that's what I meant. I honestly don't know what you're trying to say. Maybe if you wrote more than a sentence.
[ April 29, 2005, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Though yes, social progressive is a label applied to a coherent group of people in the study of the period of history we're talking about. People are complex entities, and calling someone a member of a commonly understood group X merely by holding a single position in common with that group will only result in fuzzy explanations. Instead, it might be said that a non-socially progressive person had a particular position in common with the social progressives.
For instance, I predict you'd find almost all black people in the period were against slavery, but that there were a number of black people who could not well be termed social progressives.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I'm not saying its all or nothing, but it sure sounds like you're saying its anything is everything, kat.
It seems you're saying that some theoretical person who holds a position in common with each major movement at a time (and I've known people so conflicted) is a member of all those movements, which sounds like a bizarre way to classify people.
For instance, Dagonee is a strong proponent of gay marriage (edit: though as a secular institution, but still), a commonly liberal position, but I think it would be silly to call him a liberal.
[ April 29, 2005, 05:21 PM: Message edited by: fugu13 ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Your support for Lincoln being an atheist boils down to "I've classified him with the group of people who were often atheist."
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
His repeated condemnations of religion in his early political career don't count as evidence? Odd . . .
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
You haven't produced those. Where's the evidence?
Also, not definitive. There's quite a large body of work from C.S. Lewis' youth condemning God and Christianity as well.
[ April 29, 2005, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Also, comdemning Christianity isn't the same as condemning religion.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
First, I'm not among those arguing that Lincoln was an atheist, though I'm pretty sure he was, or at least a weak agnostic.
That he was not a Christian should be fervently clear from anyone who has looked cursorily at the subject. A fine quotation:
quote:The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
And I would appreciate your response on the Dagonee example, btw.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
1. When did he write this. 2. What else did he write. 3. Why are you supporting statements that you don't agree with. 4. Theoretical authority doesn't work here. The true gurus (Dag and CT) back up their claims to a group consensus of experts.
As for Dag, I think he is liberal. I don't think he is a Liberal, but labels are generally useless when applied to individuals.
[ April 29, 2005, 05:31 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Can I make a suggestion to fugu or Squick? Post a list of socially progressive causes and Lincoln's views on them. I can't tell from how you're using the term precisely what you mean. I've seen the temperance movement considered socially progressive in history texts, and that was largely Christian.
In the post-War era, Williams Jennings Bryan was considered Progressive, and he and a large portion of his followers were Christian. (I realize this is a different era than Lincoln's.)
If you could list the major tenets of Social Progressives it would go a long way to clarifying the discussion.
Edit: Fugu, or what it's worth, my preferred term now is "equal civil marriage rights for same sex couples." No biggie, and I appreciate you making the secular distinction.
[ April 29, 2005, 05:37 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Oh, and then there's this quotation:
quote:When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Dates and sources, fugu. Those are important in history.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Actually, I'm not even arguing that Lincoln was a progressive. I just take issue with the notion that agreeing with one position of a large cause, even for reasons unrelated to the reasons members of that cause supports the position, constitutes being a member of that cause. It seems bizarrely illogical to me.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Yes, I note how many of those you've provided yourself, kat.
He appears to have said that last quotation in 1860, well into his political life.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:Yes, I note how many of those you've provided yourself, kat.
*twinkle* This is like arguing with my brother. Anyway, time to put up.
quote:"That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or any denomination of Christians in particular." --From the July 31, 1846 Handbill Replying to Charges of Infidelity
"I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion." --From the July 31, 1846 Handbill Replying to Charges of Infidelity
"The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong." --From the September 1862 Meditation on the Divine Will
"I am very glad indeed to see you to-night, and yet I will not say I thank you for this call, but I do most sincerely thank Almighty God for the occasion on which you have called." --From the July 7, 1864 Response to a Serenade
"If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God." --From the April 4, 1864 Letter to Albert Hodges
"We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom and our own error therein." --From the September 4, 1864 Letter to Eliza Gurney
These are all from Lincoln. He could have been blowing smoke then, or he could have been blowing smoke earlier in his life, he could have been a complex individual with a continually-changing understanding and relationship with God, or he could have been full of crap for most of his life.
Which quotes a historian chooses to believe are sincere and which are pandering - what history is espoused - reveals more about the historian than the subject.
In any case, reducing it to saying that Lincoln was an atheist is simplistic, at best. At worst, it is false and self-serving.
I admit I don't know much about the history of the Civil War and its players from the Northern side. Is socially progressive a term they used for themselves, or is it something historians coined to classify them?
[ April 29, 2005, 05:43 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
My personal belief (which has nothing to do with whatever religion he believed in) was that Lincoln was often mentally ill near the end of his life (though I do not feel this affected his intellect so much as his emotions), and I think that comes out in much of his writings. He was a tortured soul.
Note that I am still not arguing Lincoln was an atheist (though I would certainly argue for weak agnosticism, which works with your quotations), I was saying your statement about the lack of evidence was incorrect.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:As for Dag, I think he is liberal.
*blink*
It may be fair to say I'm not conservative as it's being practiced now by the largest group of self-identified conservatives in power. I'd argue against such an assertion, but it's at least feasible.
I'm not sure what the l/L distinction signifies to you, but unless you're hearkening back to classic liberalism ala Locke, I'm not sure how I can be liberal in any political sense of the word.
If you mean a more everyday usage of the word, I guess it could apply. But I wouldn't put that near the top of the list of adjectives describing me.
Dagonee P.S., I'm not offended at all - I'm just genuinely intrigued and curious as to your usage.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
You still haven't produced any, besides an assurance that you could.
Dag: I'm so annoyed by the co-opting of the term liberal to represent a certain group of iron-clad and verociously-rigid political beliefs that I refuse to use it that way. I mean liberal in the classic sense.
[ April 29, 2005, 05:46 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Exactly what I was thinking, Dag .
Ascribing to people a label corresponding to a broad group of beliefs with a common motivation due to a single common position seems to make that label useless, and I see little point in using labels in a way which makes them useless.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Uh, Kat, that statement about his religion is certainly evidence, its just not conclusive evidence. There's a big difference.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I should point out the people who seem to have co-opted the term liberal for that usage seem to be the Republicans . . .
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I see less point in inventing labels for individuals that obscure the complexity of their views and the need for an accounting of all of them.
No dates and sources = no historical evidence
[ April 29, 2005, 05:48 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Since I haven't been doing that in this thread, I'm fine with that Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
So what's your ultimate point beyond "challenge Katie"?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Dag: I'm so annoyed by the co-opting of the term liberal to represent a certain group of iron-clad and verociously-rigid political beliefs that I refuse to use it that way. I mean liberal in the classic sense.
OK. I just wouldn't want to have any rumors started.
I'd still like to see a list of socially progressive "causes" or what constitutes a progressive orientation in the antebellum era. I'm not at all sure what you guys mean when you use the term.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Found a secondary source, its quoted so often out of context its hard digging for a primary.
Secondary source:
quote:From Henry O. Dormann, compiler, The Speaker's Book of Quotations, New York: Ballantine Books, 1987, p. 127.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Who cares who, I've been challenging an idea I consider silly, which I have stated so many times I see no need to repeat it. There is no "anti-katie" crusade.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I don't think there is. I do think that you are constandly reacting to statements with indifferent results instead of having a cohesive theory.
[ April 29, 2005, 05:59 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I don't like cohesive theories, I find them all far too concerned with being unified over being right or useful.
I doubt there is any cohesive theory of humanity excepting humanity itself.
Give me a nice, perhaps contradictory when taken to extremes, set of notions which when applied to the real world are right and useful over a cohesive theory any day.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Coherent seemed like too cruel of an adjective to use.
Posted by skillery (Member # 6209) on :
Lincoln may have been an atheist then, but for sure he's a Mormon now. Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
How is:
quote: I'm not saying its all or nothing, but it sure sounds like you're saying its anything is everything, kat.
It seems you're saying that some theoretical person who holds a position in common with each major movement at a time (and I've known people so conflicted) is a member of all those movements, which sounds like a bizarre way to classify people.
For instance, Dagonee is a strong proponent of gay marriage (edit: though as a secular institution, but still), a commonly liberal position, but I think it would be silly to call him a liberal.
incoherent?
Everything else I've been talking about in this thread are just side tidbits of interest. That up there's the only, consistent and coherent opinion I've devoted any serious space to arguing.
Plus, I think I've got a pretty good standing on this board as far as the coherency of my arguments goes, so your opinion on the matter doesn't really impact me.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
skillery, why did you link to an anti-mormon site?
Every day is a reinvention, fugu. Appealling to your own imagined authority doesn't work. Sorry.
[ April 29, 2005, 06:08 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I'd bet because its mildly amusing thinking of Lincoln as an LDS member and that's the first site he came up with mentioning it . . .
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
*chuckle*
I'm not saying you should be persuaded because of it, that would be an appeal to authority, I'm saying I don't care you're saying I'm incoherent because of it, which is not. An important difference.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
It's fairly funny, but maybe it wasn't a good thing to link to from Hatrack.
Seriously - with the exception of our good doctors, no one gets get to coast on shoddy evidence because they imagine they produced good evidence in the past. Especially since I've seen you BS voluminously.
[ April 29, 2005, 06:12 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
*shrug*
Whatever you care to think.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I think everything would be better if you answered Dag's question he's so politely asked several times.
Posted by skillery (Member # 6209) on :
quote:first site he came up with
It was actually down the list. I couldn't find any pro-LDS sites that mentioned the possibility of Lincoln having been baptised by proxy. At least with this site you don't get the anti-LDS stuff until the lower half of the page.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
My question is probably more aimed at Squicky, since he's the one who introduced the distinction. I haven't taken history in a decade and a half, and I'm wondering what he includes under the term.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Mainly I've been somewhat wrapped up in another discussion, another is that I wasn't interested in arguing the position, as I noted in my first response.
Social progressivism is a term that has been projected back in time, from the period it became popular as a political description around the turn into the 20th century to positions held before the civil war. This is in part due to a particular perspective on Lincoln that became popular around the time -- Tarbell's biography, in particular, spurred this notion.
There is considerable foundation. For instance, Lincoln acting like a social progressive chose to use an income tax to fund the war, a (non-coincidentally) progressive income tax. He was famously for considering the USA as a cohesive whole, which is a classic progressive stance. Lincoln also supported movements towards workers' rights in his writings, though he never took a significant political stand on the issue. In an interesting side note, Harry Turtledove was able to envision Lincoln as a socialist after the South won (in an alternate history) using primarily rearranged snippets of Lincoln's actual writings. Lincoln at the very least used quite progressive rhetoric at times.
For Progressives in general before the civil war, though, their positions were often more radical. Strong workers' rights, extreme "Americanism" (meaning strong integration of immigrants into america, emphasizing national loyalty and the cohesion of the union), the support of strong civil institutions through tax dollars (meaning things similar to better business bureaus and the like; progressivism was primarily a city movement in comparison to the somewhat similar populist movement in more rural areas).
Social progressivism is also commonly associated with a notion of "removing corruption", something that closely fits with Lincoln's campaign rhetoric, though at that time nearly every politician had that somewhere in his rallying cry .
[ April 29, 2005, 06:46 PM: Message edited by: fugu13 ]
Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
quote: It may be fair to say I'm not conservative as it's being practiced now by the largest group of self-identified conservatives in power. I'd argue against such an assertion, but it's at least feasible.
thats ok, I have always thought of myself as conservative...but was recently told by a fellow graduate student that she thought of me as liberal...or perhaps moderate largely because I oppose the death penalty. Of course I also oppose abortion...but she said my reasons for opposing both (support of life in both situations) fit the liberal ideology, whatever that means. She also said the fact that I have friends all all ends of the political spectrum made me liberal as well. It sort of puzzled me that she thought it would be impossible for a "true" conservative to have a diverse group of friends...but I guess everyone has their opinions on the labels that should be used.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Yeah, that's why I just stick to calling myself "Teh Awesome."
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
*throws "Teh Pie" at Dag*
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Maybe now those tubular-food-control zealots will realize that any food can be dangerous in the wrong hands.
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
I have heard claims that Lincoln belonged to Barton Stone's movement (one of the groups that became part of the churches of Christ) based on his statements against denominations and a membership by his parents. I don't recall where I found the information right now, but I will look for it. (I also don't believe it, for a number of reasons; the most important is that Stone's movement included a number of very vocal anarchists who would have made an issue of his presidency, the way David Lipscomb did with Garfield.)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"He could have been blowing smoke then, or he could have been blowing smoke earlier in his life..."
Katie, as I said, a quick Google brings up considerable evidence that Lincoln confided to friends and even casual acquaintances that many of his mentions of God were done to placate the "fools." Given that his Secretary of State was a passionate evangelical and kept inserting references to God into released text without his permission -- and given that Lincoln later reprimanded Seward for this and, quite remarkably, declared that anything his Secretary of State released was to be reviewed prior to publication to avoid "excessive reference to Deity," I think it's likely that the vast majority of Lincoln's life was spent paying lip service to religion as an opiate for the masses.
He may have experienced some sort of religious conversion much later in life -- but on this we only have the word of his wife, who's a very unreliable source.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Combining this page with Gizoogle gives us this:
quote: Thizzay I am not a memba of any Christian Church, is true; but I hizzle neva denied tha trizzuth of tha Scriptures; n I hizzy playa spoken wit intentional diss of religion in general, or any denominizzles of Christians in particizzles...
[ April 30, 2005, 01:30 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Promethius (Member # 2468) on :
I found this in a fairly quick google search
quote: He wrote: "When I left Springfield, I asked the people to pray for me; I was not a Christian. When I buried my son—the severest trial of my life - I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg, and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ."
edit: I erased the first paragraph in the quote, it wasnt necessary to what was being said and it can be read on the first website I quoted.
[ April 30, 2005, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: Promethius ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Search for "Album-Immortelles" on this page. The original source book is known to attribute some false quotations to Lincoln, and the source for the quotation that the book gives is an anonymous illinois clergyman.
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