Russ Roberts: And then the ascension to the presidency. He’s 28 years old. What is going on in the country that worries him? What is it, in fact, that worries him, that is the focus of this speech?
Diana Shaub: Right. So what he sees is an increase in lawlessness, an increase in mob action and mob rule. That’s the diagnosis he makes. the current danger.
Later in the speech, he also talks about future dangers, but the opening part of the speech is about a present danger: the outbreak of mob rule. These are examples of vigilante behavior, where citizens “want to get justice done faster than the law allows.”
And in some cases, citizens took the law into their own hands, hanging gamblers, blacks suspected of rebellion, and whites suspected of colluding with slaves.
Lincoln said these mob rule outbreaks are happening all across the country. He said they’re not isolated to any one area.
But interestingly, he says, this wasn’t limited to slave-holding or non-slave-holding areas.
So slavery is do not have All of the examples he gives, and the fact that he brings up the important geographical division of living in a state where slavery existed or a state where it didn’t, suggest to me that he truly believes slavery was the driving force behind these riots.
Russ Roberts: Now, at this point, America is very young, less than 50 years old. Why does that have anything to do with Lincoln? What does the history of the country and the trajectory of the country up to this point mean to Lincoln?
Diana Shaub: Yes. It’s clear that he’s thinking about what it means to be a post-founding generation. So he starts off his speech talking about the Founding Fathers, what they accomplished. They gave us two things: they gave us this great land, and they gave us a political edifice of freedom and rights.
And what he’s saying is that we, his generation, are the fortunate heirs of these two good things. And he seems to suggest in his opening presentation that the Founding Fathers had a difficult job. And as heirs, what we have to do is Send We will pass these things on to the next generation.
That’s why he says, “They are a brave, stubborn, patriotic generation, and they are ours.” only It conveys these things. It’s as if easy Things to do.
So, his initial The presentation is, “Let’s keep it going.” Right? Our job is maintenance.
And as the speech progresses, it becomes clear that the maintenance work may actually be the more challenging task.
So at the end of his speech, he revisits the founding of the country and explains how the passions of the few and the many worked together to make the country possible.
So, he says, for a small number of people, their ambitions were fulfilled through this great experiment, and their personal ambitions happened to be linked to this great purpose of creating self-government.
And many people could hate the British, he says, which united them, and dangerous passions like hatred and revenge played a useful role in the founding of the country.
So in a sense, I think his point is that the founding of the country was helped by a kind of scaffolding of passion, but what happens in the future for the post-founding generations is that those passions no longer play the same beneficial role.
And there is a danger that the passions of the few will be misdirected. Right? If you cannot be known as the founder of the nation, you can be known as the ruin of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon.
And for many of us, these passions are part of human nature. Feelings of hatred, revenge, jealousy and envy will always exist, but now they are directed at our fellow Americans.
And finally, he argues that the real challenge for future generations – post-foundation generations – is to base the project of self-government on a new foundation of reason rather than passion.
And that is a very demanding demand that Lincoln makes of the American people.
So I think he is calling for a kind of, I don’t know, refinement of the project of autonomy, a spiritualization, and a demonstration of autonomy in practice. Collective It depends on the existence of autonomous individuals, which implies the primacy of reason. that’s all Passion in the human soul.
