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Reviews
| Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery, by Richard Striner. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 308 pages. $16.95 paper.
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| In Father Abraham: Lincoln's Struggle to End Slavery, Richard Striner, Professor of History at Washington College, argues persuasively that Abraham Lincoln was committed to abolishing slavery all his life. He was, writes Striner, a "masterful antislavery leader" and a "moral visionary" (p. 1) who was not the reluctant or indifferent emancipator that some recent writers have claimed him to be. The sixteenth president did devote his life and labors as chief executive to saving the Union, but, argues Striner, "By itself, preservation of the Union was an empty concept to Lincoln, unless the Union remained dedicated—or could forcibly be re-dedicated—to its founding principle that all men are created equal" (p. 7). |
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Why is the "reluctant abolitionist" image of Lincoln widespread today? Because Lincoln had to achieve his goals without alienating his constituency—the politicians, soldiers, and families on the home front who had to carry out the forcible rededication of America in "a great civil war." The majority of loyal unionists were not ready to fight and die for abolition; therefore Lincoln applied "tricky" and "very crafty methods" to conceal his underlying purposes. The president minimized his antislavery motivations in his speeches and his letters to politicians and newspaper editors, phrasing things in a "cunningly legalistic way" (p. 11) that seemed to show that saving the Union was the president's single priority. Therefore, we are left with a historical record that does not fully indicate Lincoln's abolitionism. "Lincoln," Striner writes, "was a rare man indeed: a fervent idealist endowed with a remarkable gift for strategy. An ethicist, Lincoln was also an artist in the Machiavellian uses of power" (p. 2). |
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Striner takes issue with two award-winning Lincoln scholars, Allen C. Guelzo and David Herbert Donald, who have argued that Lincoln was more attuned to political compromise than to a moral program. As Striner points out, Lincoln was so committed to emancipation that he confessed that "he would rather die than take back one word of the Proclamation of Freedom" [the Emancipation Proclamation] (p. 184). In fact, it was for Lincoln's backing of voting rights for black people that his assassin killed him. Soon after the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln began advocating that Congress "write every feature of his presidential antislavery program, both the short-term measures and long-term measures, into law as constitutional amendments" (p. 185). |
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Striner's work is consistent with, and dependent upon, the work of such leading scholars as Harry Jaffa, Don Fehrenbacher, LaWanda Cox, James McPherson, and William Miller, as he acknowledges (p. 2). However, Striner is more direct than these writers in asserting that Lincoln believed that "white supremacy was poisoning the soul off America by slow degrees" (p. 5). Beginning with Lincoln's early adulthood in the 1830s, and continuing through the debates with Douglas and the Cooper Union Address—widely reprinted speeches that made Lincoln a nation figure—Striner re-traces a consistent, "relentless," and sometimes vehement Lincoln standing against the moral outrage of slavery. The author's evidence is sound and the case he presents is convincing. His argument is significant, because without it, the Civil War diminishes into a conflict over heritage, way of life, and economic and political interests—not the great moral struggle that Abraham Lincoln led and symbolizes. |
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The book can be a powerful teaching tool, certainly appropriate beginning at the high school level. However, care should be taken as to which parts of the book are assigned to students. The early portion of the book seems to try too hard to speak in contemporary language and appeal to contemporary readers. On pp. 8–9, for example, the author uses the following language: "let the chips fall," "back down one inch," "leverage," "soften resistance," "shot down this compromise," "took a fresh look at his options," "turned the fundamental corner on slavery," and "Southern militants had threatened secession if the free states placed them in a 'one-down' power position." Such expressions are not only alien to the thought and language of Lincoln and nineteenth-century America, they are clichés and should not be held up to students as examples of acceptable writing, historical or otherwise. Similarly, the paragraphs in the early part of the book are newspaper-style in brevity. The latter portion of the book is considerably different, though p. 139 includes this sentence: "He strove to fine-tune his decisions, paying careful heed to all the micro-politics in each of the distinctive arenas." |
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Father Abraham makes a valuable contribution to Lincoln studies. The book may be controversial, and it argues its case in a direct manner without the usual academic hedging of language and assertion. But for those reasons, it might be an especially effective classroom resource for discussion and debate. Students will be confronted with this essential statement of Striner's, explaining why Lincoln uses "tricky" tactics to achieve a morally elevated goal: "So let me be very clear: if Lincoln had lost the election of 1864, the United States might very well have lost its last chance to remain a decent country" (p. 239). Students can debate this issue—and apply it to their own world. |
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| Wheaton College |
Kent Gramm |
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