Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: For decades, Americans have perceived President Abraham Lincoln as either a principled crusader for African-American rights or a crafty politician.Lincoln was, certainly, deeply principled as well as a brilliant politician, but his sights were not focused on either racial equality or political dominance.Horrified by what he believed was a Democratic attempt to hijack the government in the interests of an economic elite, Lincoln envisioned a new kind of American politics that would guarantee economic advancement for all.His approach dominated the actions of the Republican Party during the Civil War, when party members created a new activist American government which sponsored economic progress for individuals: its measures included homestead legislation, the creation of the Department of Agriculture, and the Land-Grant College Act.At the time of his death, Lincoln did not leave a secure political legacy behind.His approach came under immediate attack by President Andrew Johnson, a former Democrat who used his veto of Congress's 1866 extension of the Freedmen's Bureau to reject government support for Southern homesteads and badly needed Southern schools; Johnson incorrectly called their contemplated establishment an unprecedented use of government power.In response to that assault, the Republican Party split between those calling for a return to old party systems and those clinging to the new ways.By 1890, machine Republicans had won the struggle, and it seemed that Lincoln's new approach was dead.This was misleading.We can now see that Lincoln left a legacy of a new vision of American politics, a vision that reformers have used ever since to challenge an entrenched political and economic elite. I. LINCOLN AND BIPARTISAN POLITICSAbraham Lincoln began his political life as a Whig.This party identification was no small thing for his later political development.The Whigs are remembered today primarily for their support for internal
Source: Marquette law review
Author: Heather Cox Richardson
Institution: Marquette University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1564278813