Lincoln's Rebuke

It's inevitable that Andrew Sullivan would weigh in on the current debate about Lincoln's sexuality. He contributes this article in The New Republic. Its concluding paragraph:

The truth about Lincoln--his unusual sexuality, his comfort with male-male love and sex--is not a truth today's Republican leaders want to hear. They are well-advised to attack and suppress it. They are more closely related to the forces Lincoln defeated than those he championed; and his candor, honesty, and brave forging of a homosocial and homoerotic life in plain sight would appall them. The real Lincoln is their greatest rebuke. Which is why they will do all they can to obscure the complicated, fascinating truth about the man whose legacy they are intent on betraying.

All true, of course. But the rebuke that Lincoln represents goes far beyond his sexuality. Read his second inaugural address and you will be stunned to encounter the unmistakable voice of a politician who actually believes in God--who takes seriously the notion of divine justice and has wrestled in trembling and anguish with its implications for himself personally and for the nation he leads.

Everyone knows the fourth and final paragraph of the speech, which begins, "With malice toward none; with charity for all; . . ." It's a graceful, beautiful benediction. But its sweetness is deepened by the contrast with the two preceding paragraphs, which set forth a moral synopsis of the history and meaning of the Civil War.

It's noteworthy that Lincoln refuses to posture or congratulate his (Northern) audience about the justice of the Union cause in that war (though if any cause was ever just, that one was). Instead, he tartly observes:

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.

(I like that "somehow"--the meticulous refusal to be drawn into arguments to justify the war.) Lincoln presses on to describe how the Civil War, like many another war, has had unintended, far-reaching consequences:

Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict [i.e. slavery] might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.

And what moral sense does Lincoln make of these facts--of the appalling length and destructiveness of the war? He spends the rest of the long third paragraph offering his interpretation, which is deeply rooted in Biblical notions of justice, retribution, and the inevitable consequence of sin. He quotes Matthew 18:7: "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" And from the honest contemplation of the meaning of this text for Americans emerges this syllogism:

If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?

Yes, Lincoln is saying what he appears to be saying: "this terrible war" has been visited upon Americans because they deserve it. And, yes, "both North and South" deserve it, for both North and South countenanced the offence of "American Slavery." (Note that last phrase. Unlike most writers of textbook histories and all modern politicians, Lincoln refuses to pretend that the crime of slavery was some sort of aberration, irrelevant to the true "character" of our people. No, he brands it as what it was: "American Slavery," our nation's unique contribution to the register of historic evils.)

Though Lincoln finds this harsh conclusion unavoidable, he refuses to take any pleasure in it (unlike, for example, preachers of today like Pat Robertson, who sometimes seem to relish their vision of the coming destruction that sodomy, abortion, and progressive income taxes are surely bringing to America). Lincoln offers this plea:

Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.

But he won't let us off the hook:

Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's [i.e. the slave's] two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether."

Most politicians of today who choose to speak about God do it purely to flatter themselves and their audience. There's almost no limit to the flattery Americans are expected to swallow--witness the fulsome post-tsunami encomia about how America is "the most generous nation on earth." Truly generous people give and shut up about it.

But Lincoln refuses to flatter himself or us. Instead he models the highest degree of spiritual maturity--a readiness to see and judge oneself through God's eyes, with unflinching honesty, not wallowing in one's sins but acknowledging them as the first essential step toward repentence.

Yes, Andrew. The "real Lincoln" is the "greatest rebuke"--not just for Republicans, but for all of us.