6.28.2012 LINCOLN'S PASSIVISM

this is taken from 'lincoln' by david herbert donald. Lincoln seems a man, more than any i have ever known or known about, who combines the ability do act with great power in the lowliest manner. often i find myself silently weeping as i read of something he says, the manner in which he goes about a matter, his patient suffering...he has a wiff of Jesus about him that is beautiful to me.

this author portrays him in a way i have yet to encounter. his thesis is to attempt to understand why lincoln  related to events in the way he did. it is wholly different than other lincoln books i have read. it has
1. helped me to understand the civil war much better as to how it actually progressed.
2. it has shown lincoln, who, to this time i was of the hopeful opinion that he was a follower of Christ, in a way that makes me think not so certainly in that direction. the author states that in the crisis of the presidency his references to God increased and seemingly his faith in God increased also. he never was a member of a church and rarely attended is my understanding...i hope to see him in when, by God's grace, i may come there.

below is what the author feels is the key to understanding Lincoln in his handling of circumstances and situations he encountered..

'..this biography highlights a basic trait of character evident throughout l's life; the essential passivity of his nature. l himself recognized it in a letter he wrote on april 4, 1864, to albert g. hodges, a fellow kentuckian, who asked him to explain why he had shifted from his inaugural pledge not to interfere with slavery to a policy of emancipation. after relating how circumstances had obliged him to change his mind- how emancipation and the use of african-american soldiers had become military necessities-the president concluded; 'in telling this tale i attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. i claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me'.

from his earliest days LINCOLN HAD A SENSE THAT HIS DESTINY WAS CONTROLLED BY SOME LARGER FORCE, some higher power. turning away from orthodox christianity because of the emotional excesses of frontier evangelicalism, he found it easier as a young man to accept what was called the Doctrine of Necessity, which he defined as the belief 'that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control'. later he frequently quoted to his patner, william h. herndon, the lines from hamlet;

there's a divinity that shapes our ends,
rough-hew them how we will.

from l's fatalism derived some of his most lovable traits; his compassion, his tolerance, his willingness to overlook mistakes. that belief did not, of course, lead him to lethargy or diddipation. like thousands of calvinists who believed in predestination, he worked indefatigably for a better world-for himself, for his family, and for his nation. but it helped to buffer the many reverses that he experience and enabled him to continue a strenuous life of aspiration.

it also made for a pragmatic approach to problems, a recognition that if one solution was fated not to work another could be tried. 'my policy is to have no policy'  became a kind of moto for l-a motto that infuriated the sober, doctrinaire people around him who were inclined to think that the president had no principles either. he might have offended his critics  less if he had more often used the analogy he gave james g. blaine when explaining his course on Reconstruction: 'the pilots on our western rivers steer from POINT TO POINT as they call it-setting the course of the boat no farther than they can see; and that is all i propose to myself in this great problem'.

both statements suggest l's reluctance to take the initiative and make bold plans; HE PREFERRED TO RESPOND TO THE ACTIONS OF OTHERS. they also show why l in his own distinctively american way had the quality john keats defined as forming 'a man of achievement', that quality 'which shakespeare possessed so enormously...Negative Capability, that is WHEN A MAN IS CAPABLE OF BEING IN UNCERTAINTIES, MYSTERIES , DOUBTS, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason'.