Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle — We have Lincoln wrong: Our greatest Lincoln historian explains his real Civil War motivations

Lincoln’s decision to resist Southern secession and fight a war to maintain the American Union was motivated primarily by his belief that the nation was founded on the idea that this country “proposed to give all a chance” and allow “the weak to grow stronger.” The toxic combination of secession together with an unending commitment to unpaid human bondage by a new and separate Confederate nation, he calculated, would be fatal to the American Dream. It posed a direct threat to a self-sustaining middle-class society and to the promise of America leading the way to spreading the idea of opportunity and upward mobility throughout the world.

“I hold the value of life is to improve one’s condition,” Lincoln declared just three weeks before assuming the presidency, reiterating a lifetime of similarly expressed commitment to what historian Gabor Boritt brilliantly calls the uniquely American “right to rise.” Seven slaveholding Southern states had already declared by their independence the converse: the right to establish a nation of their own based on the denial of opportunity. Lincoln believed that the American nation based on the credo of opportunity for all was worth fighting for. “Whatever is calculated to advance the condition of the honest, struggling laboring man, so far as my judgment will enable me to judge of a correct thing, I am for that thing,” he said in 1861. In the face of unimaginable casualties and devastation, he remained for “that thing” for the rest of his life.

The origin, depth, and durability of Lincoln’s commitment cry out for new exploration and interpretation, particularly now, as the ability to rise is being challenged in the United States by economic, social, and political conditions producing ever-increasing inequality.…

… Lincoln was unwavering in his commitment to preserve the American Dream of economic opportunity for future generations, a dream he lived by escaping the poverty of his childhood and one he advocated throughout his political life. It was this commitment that lay behind his determination to ensure that a government dedicated to providing economic opportunity for its citizens “shall not perish from the earth.” Lincoln largely fought the Civil War over this principle, establishing a role for government in securing and guaranteeing economic opportunity for its citizens, a guarantee that has remained at the center of political debate and discord ever since, seldom so acrimoniously as today….

More than is often realized, the Civil War was fought not over the morality of slavery or the abstract sanctity of the American Union, but over what kind of economy the nation should have….

Salon
We have Lincoln wrong: Our greatest Lincoln historian explains his real Civil War motivations

Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle

Robin Blackburn — Lincoln and Marx

Abraham Lincoln, as president, chose to reply to an “Address” from the London-based International Workingmen’s Association. The “Address,” drafted by Karl Marx, congratulated Lincoln on his reelection for a second term. In some resonant and complex paragraphs, the “Address” heralded the world-historical significance of what had become a war against slavery. The “Address” declared that victory for the North would be a turning point for nineteenth-century politics, an affirmation of free labor, and a defeat for the most reactionary capitalists who depended on slavery and racial oppression.…

Jacobin Magazine
Lincoln and Marx — The transatlantic convergence of two revolutionaries.
Robin Blackburn | former editor of the New Left Review
h/t Jan Milch

karol — Neo-Confederate Group Plans Celebration Of Lincoln Assassination

Yes, really.

I'm really glad there's no more racism to worry about in the United States, aren't you? Because now we don't have to worry about people like this:

Warren Throckmorton notes, just today announced that on April 14 it will host a celebration of the anniversary of the “execution of the tyrant Abraham Lincoln.”League of the South President Michael Hill writes in a blog post titled “Honoring John Wilkes Booth” that the organization “thanks Mr. Booth for his service to the South and to humanity”:

The League of the South looks to the present and future. However, from time to time we do look back at our past.

This 14th of April will mark the 150th anniversary of John Wilkes Booth’s execution of the tyrant Abraham Lincoln. The League will, in some form or fashion, celebrate this event. We remember Booth’s diary entry: “Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.” A century and a half after the fact, The League of the South thanks Mr. Booth for his service to the South and to humanity.…

Crooks and Liars
Neo-Confederate Group Plans Celebration Of Lincoln Assassination

karoli

Jonathan Larson — Wray on MMT

Modern Monetary Theory is a concept that makes me a tad nervous because I find that most monetary ideas have been around for at least a century and likely more. In fact, it is pretty damn hard to top the monetary ideas of Lincoln and his Greenbacks, or for that matter, Peter Cooper and the Greenback Party of the 1870s. 

But since MMT seems to be the preferred description of the current monetary position of progressives, I am trying to get myself up to speed. First up is a positive explanation of MMT by L. Randall Wray of U Missouri Kansas City followed by a really thoughtful discussion of progressive monetary ideas by Bill Mitchell. All I can say is that if this is what they are calling MMT, it is certainly something that would have made old Peter Cooper happy.

Real Economics
Wray on MMTJonathan Larson

Phoenix Woman — Lincoln’s Remarks on Labor and Capital

Abe Lincoln’s words have been appropriated by various groups for various purposes, and words have often been put in his mouth by people seeking to use him and his reputation to further their own causes. But the recent Upworthy spotlighting of his remarks on labor and capital, found in his December 1861 annual message to Congress, is a pretty accurate representation of his thoughts on the matter.

In a speech of nearly seven thousand words, the newly-elected President Lincoln uses six hundred and sixty-five of them — nearly a tenth of his total speech, at a time when the South had but a few months earlier fired upon Fort Sumter to start the American Civil War — to state his opinion that the rights of the laborer trump those of the capitalist.
Here are his remarks in full:

Firedoglake
Late Night: Lincoln’s Remarks on Labor and Capital

Phoenix Woman

Daniel Little — Lincoln and Marx

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." — Lincoln's First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861.

Understanding Society
Lincoln and Marx
Daniel Little | Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Professor of Philosophy at UM-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at UM-Ann Arbor