With or Without Reason

Teri Taylor
Oregon High School, Oregon

The dictionary defines fickle as changing, not constant, likely to change without reason, and as likely to change in aspect or nature, uncertain. Since Abraham Lincoln changed political parties and changed his position on issues, was he fickle, or did he have reasons? Lincoln may have had a very good explanation of why he changed his mind. Lincoln once said, "My policy is to have no policy." He believed every event should be judged separately and the circumstances should dictate what happens. By looking at cases where Lincoln changed his mind one may find that he was not fickle, but that he carefully examined the circumstances of a situation and did what he believed was best in that particular situation.

One of Lincoln's biggest changes was his change of political parties. Lincoln's political career began in 1834, when he ran for a seat in the Illinois General Assembly and won the election as a Whig. Lincoln continually worked hard for the Whig Party, and in 1846 he won the Whig nomination for the United States House of Representatives. However, the Whig Party began falling apart in the 1850s; members of the party from different parts of the country could not agree on a solution to the problem of slavery. When the Republican Party began forming, Lincoln opposed it and temporarily blocked its formation in Illinois. In 1856, with the Whig Party dying out and the presidential election coming, Lincoln led a drive to organize the Republican Party in Illinois. He almost won the Republican nomination for vice president.

In an announcement in the Sangamo Journal Lincoln said that as a representative of the people, he would govern by their will. At the Republican Convention in 1860, David Davis persuaded delegates to back Lincoln by promising some high offices in Lincoln's administration in return for their support. When Lincoln ran as the Republican candidate for president, his name was not on the ballot in the Southern states. Lincoln received a majority of votes in every free state except New Jersey. Lincoln got just under 40 percent of the popular vote, but he received the majority of electoral votes.

As a Whig in Congress, Lincoln opposed the Mexican War as "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President," but as president, Lincoln assumed unprecedented executive powers. During the Civil War, Lincoln gave the army the right to suspend habeas corpus in the areas where there were active Southern sympathizers. Lincoln also ordered spending federal funds without waiting for Congressional appropriations. He believed these powers to be within the war powers granted by the Constitution to the president.

President Lincoln held to the principle that slavery must be excluded from territories by an act of Congress. Even so, he signed laws that set up territorial governments in Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada without the prohibition of slavery. While campaigning for president in 1860, Lincoln's Republican Party's platform toward the South was that the party would not interfere with the "domestic institutions" of the states. During the Civil War, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which stated that all slaves in states, or parts of states in rebellion on January 1, 1863, were freed. The Emancipation Proclamation made way for the Thirteenth Amendment, which, when it was adopted in December 1865, ended slavery in all of the United States.

Lincoln believed in the Whig principle of order and national unity. This principle was very clear when Lincoln declared the purpose of the Civil War was to preserve the Union, and he said that the Constitution protected slavery where it existed. In Lincoln's famous House Divided Speech he said, "A House divided against itself cannot stand. The government cannot remain half free and half slave."

Was Lincoln fickle in his changing of political parties and his changing of some of his views? Perhaps the best way to judge is to look at each instance where Lincoln changed his mind, the same way Lincoln said he looked at events. Judge each instance based on its circumstances. In some instances Lincoln may have been fickle, and in some he may have had a reason. Each person must look at the events and judge separately their view on one of America's greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln.—[From Mario M. Cuomo, Lincoln on Democracy; Richard Nelson Current, Speaking of Abraham Lincoln; Stephen B. Oates, With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln; Victor Searcher, Lincoln's Journey to Greatness.]

ILLINOIS HISTORY/FEBRUARY 1997

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