Abstract
Lincoln’s Dilemma: Blair, Sumner, and the Republican Struggle over Racism and Equality in the Civil War Era (2014) by Paul D. Escott is not your typical criminal justice monograph, but its contents are tremendously relevant to current race relations in the United States. As recent historical events like the reactions to the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, and the death of Eric Garner at the hands of law enforcement in New York City, demonstrate the United States still struggles with equality and racism. Just as the belief that we live in a post-racial society hurts our understanding of contemporary politics and social issues, so too does oversimplifying the conflict that surrounded the civil war in the United States. For any readers who cling to morally unambiguous notions of Lincoln as the archetype of antislavery and equality, Escott’s historical account, like Dirck’s (2012) Abraham Lincoln and White America and Foner’s The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, disabuses these notions. With Lincoln’s Dilemma, Escott continues to make significant contributions to the growing body of historical work on the civil war and Lincoln.
The book begins with a brief history of Lincoln’s unlikely rise from relative obscurity during the founding of the Republican Party and later his election to presidency. The Republican Party was a diverse group, whose members generally found consensus around the issues of the importance of state’s rights, the preservation of the union, and the belief that the practices of slavery should not expand. However, there were deep divisions within the party over how to address slavery and racism. The radical republicans advocated for the abolition of slavery and racial equality, while the more conservative republicans were “antislavery racists” who generally advocated for “racial separation” through colonization. As a leader, Lincoln was constantly evolving. His strong political ambition and rough around the edges sense of humor and storytelling where honed by early political failures, a difficult marriage, and personal tragedy. These adversities all contributed to Lincoln’s cool temper, willingness to withhold judgment, and shrewd political maneuvering to achieve the goal of preserving the union. Above all, Lincoln was not a static ideologue but a realist with strong democratic values.
Escott’s writing reveals the deeply conflicted nature of racial relations in the United States during the civil war period. In this context, slavery and racism were two distinct but overlapping issues, which neither the north nor the Republican Party was united on. Escott skillfully frames the conflict within the newly formed Republican Party on these issues by alternating presentations of the perspectives of two of Lincoln’s friends and advisors: Montgomery Blair, an antislavery proponent who advocated for separation of the races and colonization, and Charles Sumner, an abolitionist and advocate for equality between races. Furthermore, the political ideology of James Wilkes Booth, grounded in strong support of slavery and racist values, demonstrates the breadth of the ideological spectrum Lincoln wrestled with throughout his presidency. As a pragmatist who married into a Kentucky slaveholding family, Lincoln’s goal was to save the union and in this process negotiate the complex divisions based on the question of race within his party and dividing the north and the south.
Escott captures the incremental and pragmatic changes to Lincoln’s positions on slavery and race as history unfolds. “As a young politician, Lincoln engaged in the race-baiting and racist rhetoric that was common among Illinois politicians” (p. 18) and although he was opposed to the expansion of slavery to non-slave states, he defended southern states right to slavery. Lincoln used the Emancipation Proclamation as a political tool to try to reunite the union and allow slaveholding states to keep slavery if they rejoined the union, witnessed the accomplishments of free African Americans who fought with the union, and continuously grappled with the contradictions inherent in slavery and racism. Frederick Douglas, the African American abolitionist, understood the duality of Lincoln’s racism and desire to free the country from slavery and that it was this contradiction that allowed Lincoln to communicate with individuals on all sides of the issues and to make progress. “Though Lincoln is revered, his career is widely misunderstood, and the social context so important to Frederick Douglass’s analysis is largely forgotten” (p. 221).
Just over one hundred years after the death of Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. in his “Where Do We Go From Here?” speech stated that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward Justice.” Lincoln’s life epitomized this quote, and Escott has privileged readers with a window into how “the problem of race, and the question of equal rights for African Americans” (p. 216) challenged Lincoln to move from racism toward justice. Lincoln “kept his mind open to a variety of ideas beyond those he favored at any given moment, and was capable of moving with events” (p. 208). Lincoln’s complex legacy challenges us all to be open to change and to pragmatically move toward justice. I would recommend Lincoln’s Dilemma for scholars and students in law, history, public policy, criminology, criminal justice, and political science.