Lincoln & The Republican Party

I've been catching up on my Lincoln reading and considering that today we're somehow we're supposed to be celebrating his birthday (or Washington's, or all Presidents', or Mattresses), it seems appropriate to deal with a recent controversy about the man.

In my Rosh Hashanah sermon this year I mentioned how three men seem to be so great, so inclusive, that every possible adherent group wants to claim the man as their spiritual ancestor: Abraham the Patriarch, Maimonides, and Lincoln.

For Abraham's legacy, see any of the bazillion major and minor religions that use the Bible. For Maimonides, see how his pronouncements are used by Modern Orthodox, Reform, Charedi, and Chasidic groups.

Lincoln is our American Abraham. [Side note for a true story; up until when I was in kindergarten, I thought Abraham the Patriarch and Abe the President were the same person; they were talked about in the same manner, and how many people are called Abraham anyway? Name another one in American history and I'll give you a coke]

Anyway. Last week, Congressman Don Young (R-AK) while voting for the "surge" quoted what he thought were words from Lincoln:

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."

It should be obvious to anyone who knows Abe that he could never have said such drivel. He fought a war to preserve the rights of the Constitution and was constantly pardoning people from the death penalty - how could he call for people to die just for expressing their constitutionally protected beliefs?

Thankfully, it was quickly shown that Abe never said it. The quote was invented by some right-wing stooge. The full story of the quote can be seen here from Editor & Publisher:

But Lincoln never said that. The conservative author who touched off the misquotation frenzy, J. Michael Waller, concedes that the words are his, not Lincoln's. Waller says he never meant to put quote marks around them, and blames an editor [at the magazine Insight] for the mistake and the failure to correct it. We also note other serious historical errors in the Waller article containing the bogus quote.

It takes a special kind of idiot to think that the greatest president who ever lived, possibly the greatest American (besides my Mom) who ever lived, would be able to say filth invented by a right-wing crank.

It gets better when you see what Lincoln actually did say. I love this (h/t Sullivan):

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, Â? 'I see no probability of the British invading us;' but he will say to you, 'Be silent: I see it, if you don't.'

"The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood," - Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to William H. Herndon, Feb. 15, 1848.

(Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, had written him arguing that the president as commander-in-chief possessed the right to initiate a war against Mexico without specific Congressional authorization.)"

To clarify Lincoln - while in Congress - criticized the sitting President's rationale for the Mexican War. Which means that the Lincoln of the Republican-stooges would call for the hanging of the real Lincoln.

Lincoln is not a Modern Republican

But here's the bigger point: why do we keep associating Lincoln with the Republican party? Sure, I know, he was the first of that party to be president, but by that logic we should say that James Buchanan is indicative of the Democratic party. The parties of 1860 have no resemblance to what they are now. The 1860 Democrats were about racism and entrenched power - the very same stuff represented by the Republicans of today (and except for the amazing Teddy Roosevelt, pretty much every Republican from 1868 on).

I want to call for a moratorium on labeling Republicans "the Party of Lincoln" and that all references to Lincoln being a founder of the current party to be considered irony.

Lincoln fought and died for freedom, dignity, and equality. He was a bleeding-heart liberal, a supporter of the common laborer against the wealthy, a staunch opponent of the anti-immigrant Know-Nothing party, a supporter of civil rights, an opponentnt the death-penalty, and unaffiliated with any religious denomination. He is a liberal and just as James Buchanan would be a 2007 Republican, Lincoln would be 2007 Democrat.