Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism: Lincoln, Douglas, and Moral Conflict

by John Burt

Overview

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

In 1858, challenger Abraham Lincoln debated incumbent Stephen Douglas seven times in the race for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. More was at stake than slavery in those debates. In Lincoln’s Tragic Pragmatism, John Burt contends that the very legitimacy of democratic governance was on the line. In a United States stubbornly divided over ethical issues, the overarching question posed by the Lincoln-Douglas debates has not lost its urgency: Can a liberal political system be used to mediate moral disputes? And if it cannot, is violence inevitable?

“John Burt has written a work that every serious student of Lincoln will have to read...Burt refracts Lincoln through the philosophy of Kant, Rawls and contemporary liberal political theory. His is very much a Lincoln for our time.”
—Steven B. Smith, New York Times Book Review

“I'm making space on my overstuffed shelves for Lincoln’s Tragic Pragmatism. This is a book I expect to be picking up and thumbing through for years to come.”
—Jim Cullen, History News Network

“Burt treats the [Lincoln-Douglas] debates as being far more significant than an election contest between two candidates. The debates represent profound statements of political philosophy and speak to the continuing challenges the U.S. faces in resolving divisive moral conflicts.”
—E. C. Sands, Choice

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674070530
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	01/07/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	832
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

John Burt is Professor of English at Brandeis University.

Read an Excerpt

From Chapter Three: Lincoln’s Conspiracy Charge

The metaphor of the House Divided might lead one to anticipate that the argument of the speech would be that the slavery problem was so deep that it would continue to make the United States politically unstable until slavery was abolished. That argument, of course, was perfectly plausible, both in its own day and now. But that wasn’t the argument Lincoln devoted the speech to developing.

The speech was mostly invested in developing two different sorts of conspiracy theory, one of them plausible, one of them implausible. Both are versions of what is called the slave power conspiracy thesis. The larger scale, and more plausible, argument, which I will call the “general” slave power conspiracy thesis, was sketched out in the opening paragraphs of the speech. That argument held that it is in the nature of slavery itself, as an economic, social, and political institution, to entrain the entire society around itself. The general slave power conspiracy thesis argued that the political logic of slave societies dictates that slaveholders must always, in defense of slavery, seek to dominate any republic in which they play a part. The consequence for America is that the slave states must inevitably seek to subvert the political order of the republic or resign themselves to the death of slavery.

This “general slave power conspiracy” argument may not have been entirely a confabulation of what Richard Hofstadter called “the paranoid style,” since there really is a fundamental incompatibility between slavery and democracy that committed the slave states to a destabilizing and ultimately suicidal quest for mastery of the republic, even if, as historians now believe, it was slavery that made the republic possible in the first place.

A more concrete version of the general slave power conspiracy theory might have argued that the slave power actually was meditating a plan to force slavery back into the free states. There is no plausible evidence that the politicians of the slave states were pursuing such an aim in 1858. However, it could be argued that if the slaveholders had to seek mastery of the republic in order to defend slavery, a realistic view of their situation would have dictated that sooner or later they would have had to attempt to nationalize slavery. That said, one can use arguments about the threats that one ideology must sooner or later pose to another to prove almost anything, and arguments of that kind are often self-fulfilling prophecies.

The main charge of the speech was more specific than this, and more problematic. Lincoln devoted most of the “House Divided” speech to the claim that Stephen Douglas, in concert with Presidents Pierce and Buchanan and with Chief Justice Taney, had since some time before 1854 been engineering not only the establishment of slavery in the remaining western territories, but also the reintroduction of slavery into all of the free states by judicial fiat. Lincoln developed what I will call the “special slave power conspiracy thesis” in considerable detail, and most of his evidence was extremely flimsy.

Table of Contents

Contents Preface Acknowledgments 1.1 Negative Cap 1.2 Liberalism and Moral Conflict 2.1 The Debate over the Kansas - Nebraska Act 2.2 Making and Breaking Deals in 1850 and in 1854 2.3 Lincoln’s Chief Arguments 2.4 The Irony of American History 3. Lincoln’s Conspiracy Charge 3.1 The “House Divided” Metaphor 3.2 The Unfolding of the Bleeding Kansas War 3.3 Douglas and the Lecompton Constitution 3.4 Lincoln’s Evidence 3.5 Dred Scott II 3.6 A Living Dog Is Better than a Dead Lion 4.1 Lincoln and the Founding of the Republican Party 4.2 The Reorganization of Parties 4.3 From Whig to Republic 4.4 Anti-Nebraska and Anti-Lecompton Democrats 4.5 The 1854 Platforms 4.6 Conspiracies across Party Lines 4.7 Sectional and Ideological Parties 4.8 Conclusion 5. Douglas’s Fanaticism Charge 5.1 Hostility to New England 5.2 The Apodictic Style and Reasonableness 5.3 Appeals to the Divine Will 5.4 Implicitness and Situatedness 5.5 Transformation of Conceptions 5.6 Limits of Persuasive Engagement 6. Douglas’s Racial Equality Charge 6.1 Lincoln’s Nonextension Position and Anti-slavery 6.2 Douglas on Abolition and Black Citizenship 6.3 From Nonextension to Emancipation 6.4 From Emancipation to Citizenship 6.5 Racism and Freedom 7. The Dred Scott Case 7.1 Legal Background of the Case 7.2 The Dred Scott Case in Court 7.3 Lincoln’s Response 7.4 Douglas’s Response 7.5 Conclusion 8. Aftershocks of the Debates 8.1 Southern Responses to the Freeport Doctrine 8.2 Douglas’s “Dividing Line” Doctrine 8.3 The Pamphlet War with Jeremiah Black 8.4 The 1859 Ohio “Lincoln-Douglas Debates” 8.5 The Cooper Union Speech 8.6 The First Inaugural Address 9. Coda: And the War Came 9.1 The Gettysburg Address 9.2 The Will of God Prevails 9.3 The Second Inaugural Address Notes Works Cited Index

Editorial Reviews

John Burt…has written a work that every serious student of Lincoln will have to read…It is a work of history presented as an argument about moral conflict, and a work of philosophy presented as a rhetorical analysis of Lincoln's most famous speeches…Burt refracts Lincoln through the philosophy of Kant, Rawls and contemporary liberal political theory. His is very much a Lincoln for our time.

The New York Times Book Review - Steven B. Smith

John Burt has written a work that every serious student of Lincoln will have to read… Burt refracts Lincoln through the philosophy of Kant, Rawls, and contemporary liberal political theory. His is very much a Lincoln for our time.
-- Steven B. Smith New York Times Book Review

I’m making space on my overstuffed shelves for Lincoln’s Tragic Pragmatism. This is a book I expect to be picking up and thumbing through for years to come.
-- Jim Cullen History News Network

Burt treats the [Lincoln–Douglas] debates as being far more significant than an election contest between two candidates. The debates represent profound statements of political philosophy and speak to the continuing challenges the U.S. faces in resolving divisive moral conflicts.
-- E. C. Sands Choice

John Burt writes with real penetration about the arguments that informed the rise to power of the greatest genius of American democracy. At once a detailed history of the crisis of the 1850s and a searching essay on the moral basis of politics, this book goes far to answer two questions: why did Lincoln believe that compromise was the heart of normal politics, and how did he come to define a moment when normal politics must end?
-- David Bromwich, author of A Choice of Inheritance

Thoroughly informed by historical learning and philosophical sophistication, literary critic John Burt provides a detailed analysis of the Lincoln–Douglas debates in their original context, scrupulously fair to both parties. This is the most profound exploration of the enduring significance of Lincoln’s rhetoric since Harry Jaffa’s classic [Crisis of the House Divided] of 1959. A magnificent achievement.
-- Daniel Walker Howe, author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848

Lincoln’s Tragic Pragmatism is a brilliant, ground-breaking book with fresh insights on almost every page. No one has analyzed the ironies and problems of liberal politics with the rigor, depth, and subtlety Burt displays here. He redeems (or recovers) Stephen Douglas’s reputation as a writer, speaker, and political thinker, and, through his deep engagement with Lincoln’s writings, Burt also makes the best case available for the significance of Lincoln as a literary figure. And Burt’s conclusions about the limits of liberal politics, about democracy itself being the barrier to ending a pervasive evil, have deep resonances for nations today.
-- John Stauffer, author of The Black Hearts of Men

From the Publisher

Thoroughly informed by historical learning and philosophical sophistication, literary critic John Burt provides a detailed analysis of the Lincoln–Douglas debates in their original context, scrupulously fair to both parties. This is the most profound exploration of the enduring significance of Lincoln’s rhetoric since Harry Jaffa’s classic [Crisis of the House Divided] of 1959. A magnificent achievement.

Daniel Walker Howe

John Burt has written a work that every serious student of Lincoln will have to read… Burt refracts Lincoln through the philosophy of Kant, Rawls, and contemporary liberal political theory. His is very much a Lincoln for our time.

New York Times Book Review - Steven B. Smith

I’m making space on my overstuffed shelves for Lincoln’s Tragic Pragmatism. This is a book I expect to be picking up and thumbing through for years to come.

History News Network - Jim Cullen

Burt treats the [Lincoln–Douglas] debates as being far more significant than an election contest between two candidates. The debates represent profound statements of political philosophy and speak to the continuing challenges the U.S. faces in resolving divisive moral conflicts.

Choice - E. C. Sands

John Burt writes with real penetration about the arguments that informed the rise to power of the greatest genius of American democracy. At once a detailed history of the crisis of the 1850s and a searching essay on the moral basis of politics, this book goes far to answer two questions: why did Lincoln believe that compromise was the heart of normal politics, and how did he come to define a moment when normal politics must end?

David Bromwich

Lincoln’s Tragic Pragmatism is a brilliant, ground-breaking book with fresh insights on almost every page. No one has analyzed the ironies and problems of liberal politics with the rigor, depth, and subtlety Burt displays here. He redeems (or recovers) Stephen Douglas’s reputation as a writer, speaker, and political thinker, and, through his deep engagement with Lincoln’s writings, Burt also makes the best case available for the significance of Lincoln as a literary figure. And Burt’s conclusions about the limits of liberal politics, about democracy itself being the barrier to ending a pervasive evil, have deep resonances for nations today.

John Stauffer

Burt (English, Brandeis Univ.) wants us to consider the moral compasses of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, and democracy itself, as revealed especially in the speeches of Lincoln and Douglas during the 1850s, when the slavery issue tore apart the old party system and led to secession and civil war. Burt reads the speeches as closely as anyone ever has and extracts from them some surprising conclusions, most important that Lincoln imagined black citizenship and equality even before he comprehended it; that the nature of democracy itself made compromise over slavery impossible—and thus some major division inevitable and war inescapable; and that Lincoln knew that moral maturity required reasonableness as much as rationality. As Burt confesses, his book is not history per se so much as it is an inquiry into political philosophy, rhetoric, and literary criticism, but it is well worth working through the sometimes abstruse prose to obtain Burt’s many insights.

Verdict Difficult and demanding but penetrating, Burt’s book speaks brilliantly not only to the troubles of Lincoln’s day but to the problems in respecting differences in American democracy even now.—Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph’s Univ., Philadelphia(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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