Aug. 23, 2010
Charles Sheldon in 1896 wrote a novel In His Steps. The subtitle was “What would Jesus do?” The novel was very popular and was translated into 21 languages. Sheldon thought that Jesus would promote a kind of Christian Socialism, take from the rich and give to the poor. Others after Sheldon took up that question, What would Jesus do?, and gave different answers.
In the American political tradition what I want to know is, what would Jefferson or Lincoln do?
Thomas Jefferson was our first Democratic President.
Jefferson was a classic liberal. That is, as a leading Enlightenment thinker, his most cherished value was freedom, especially freedom from government and freedom from clergy. His biggest worry was that government would become too big, too strong and too tyrannical. As for religion he made his own version of the New Testament in which he deleted all references to miracles and the afterlife but retained the moral teachings of Jesus. He believed in God, but said, “I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.”
He would not have approved of today’s progressive Democrats in their zeal to expand the role of the government. In his First Inaugural Address Jefferson advised “a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” As to the national debt, “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” As to social welfare, “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them … .I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.”
On the other hand he was no friend of the rich and powerful either. “I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
As to foreign policy he advised “commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.” He was not opposed to war when it was justified and he was in favor of guns for citizens and a strong military. “Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every Free State.”
Jefferson did not hesitate to use the military to solve national problems. Muslim pirates in North Africa were kidnapping and demanding huge ransoms for American sailors when he was president. Jefferson sent the U.S. Navy with instructions to use all necessary force to crush the pirates and rescue our sailors. And they did.
He was a strong supporter of science. “The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view, the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god.” He believed that science would lead the way to get those “saddles” off their backs. And that’s pretty much how it happened.
Like his friend and fellow patriot Benjamin Franklin, he himself was a scientist. As President he sent Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition not to conquer but to discover what the west was like. While he claimed not to hold any territorial or imperial ambitions he also made the single largest addition to the United States territory ever when he authorized the Louisiana Purchase from France.
He was always a friend to educators. “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people … They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
What would Jefferson do today? Would he be a Democrat, a Progressive, or a Libertarian? Would he be a Republican or a Tea Party candidate? You decide.
Abraham Lincoln was our first Republican President.
Lincoln, too, was a liberal in the classical sense of cherishing liberty. But he also cherished union. And achieving a lasting blend of liberty and union proved to be his greatest challenge and his greatest achievement.
Lincoln was friendly toward industry and business. As a lawyer in Illinois, Lincoln often represented large corporations. He himself had once been a small businessman who owned and ran a “grocery” in New Salem. It was a failure. As he later put it, his store “blinked out” and left him in debt for fifteen years (a sum he likened to the “National Debt”). Eventually he did pay it off from his meager salary as a freshman Congressman.
As President he did not have much chance to demonstrate social welfare policy. His job as he saw it was to hold the union together even at the cost of a terrible war.
The story of his relationship with the famous and powerful journalist, Horace Greeley, has relevance for us today. Both he and Greeley were union supporters. Both believed slavery was wrong and must eventually be abolished if America was to survive as a modern state. Both believed the North had no choice but to go to war when Southern states seceded.
Lincoln and Greeley (as well as most people in the North) also thought the secession could be ended with a quick decisive show of union force. However after the Union’s disastrous defeat at Bull Run in the very first battle of the war, Lincoln got this letter from the New York journalist. “I have spent seven consecutive sleepless nights, Mr. Lincoln. The gloom in this city is funereal, for our dead at Bull Run were many and they lie unburied yet. On every brow sits sullen, scorching, black despair. What can I do, Mr. President? If it is best for the country that we make peace with the rebels at once and on their own terms, do not shrink even from that.”
Lincoln had no thought of giving up. He held fast to his goal of liberty and union for four bitter years and over 500,000 casualties. He had to ignore oceans of ink spilling vicious and vile personal attacks in Northern newspapers. He had to stay the course after many of his closest friends and supporters had deserted him. In the last year of the war when an embattled Lincoln was running for a second term the liberal abolitionist lawyer and author Richard Dana wrote, “As to the politics of Washington, the most striking thing is the absence of personal loyalty to the President. It does not exist. He has no admirers here, no enthusiastic supporters. We went for a rail splitter, and we have got one.”
The rail-splitter won the election. The Union won the war. Slavery was abolished and the union was preserved.
Am I wrong to see some of the “Greeley” attitude today in the clamor to “bring our troops home” immediately if not sooner? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been ugly, long and difficult, though with far far fewer casualties than the wars of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Truman or Kennedy/Johnson. Many patriots from both political parties want to call it quits and simply get out, “even on their own terms.”
I realize full well that when Jefferson and Lincoln lived and governed, the United States was very different from the United States of today. In 1790 it had a population of less than 4 million. When Lincoln was President the United States had grown to over 30 million, of which over 80% were farmers. The industrial revolution was just getting underway. The communication revolution was not even a dream. But the eloquent words of Lincoln in his 1862 plea to Congress for a constitutional amendment to free the slaves still have relevance.
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy future … Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation … in giving freedom to the slaves, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what give and in what we preserve … we shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”
It held Mr. Jefferson. It held Mr. Lincoln. But slavery to tyrants and to clergy still exists in this troubled world. And some of us still think we are an exceptional country that has often led the way in the past to abolish slavery of all kinds and on all continents. Many of us think that we are still “the last best hope of earth.”
In considering our challenges today another speech Lincoln gave in Philadelphia on his way to take office as President seems especially relevant. “I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy together so long. It was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the mother country, but that something in the Declaration of Independence giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulder of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.”
Lincoln prevailed in the Civil War. Roosevelt led us to victory in World War 2. After that terrible war Truman and Marshall lifted the weights from many shoulders in our former enemies Germany, Italy and Japan. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Bush and Reagan helped almost half the world escape a totalitarian nightmare brought on by communist ideology and domination. I think Mr. Lincoln would be happy and proud to know that his quest for liberty and union has spread to over half the world. Yes, sixty percent of the world today is free, democratic and making progress toward the goal “that all should have an equal chance.”
To be sure there are still major obstacles to a free, democratic, peaceful, progressive world for all. The Radical Islamic quest is a major one. The rapid growth of government and a soaring national debt in so many western democracies is another. Poverty and disease in developing countries around the world is still another. And the loss of confidence in our own country from our own people may be the most serious threat of all.
What would Jesus do? What would Jefferson do? What would Lincoln do?
It matters little. It’s up to us now.
Bill Stonebarger, Owner/President Hawkhill
P.S. You can learn more about the historical background for these difficult issues in some of our new programs. DEMOCRACY: THE BASICS, DEMOCRACY IN THE 21ST CENTURY. For more on Jefferson and the other founding fathers see our recent program THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, CAPITALISM AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. For more on Lincoln and the Civil War see our recently redone classic program, A. LINCOLN. For more on religion and democracy see: RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY.