A few more post-election-related thoughts

From Digby at Hullabaloo comes a link to a speech by Abraham Lincoln at Cooper Union in New York City in October, 1859. Lincoln's target was the demand of legislators from the South that slavery be allowed in federal territories, with particular focus on Sen. Stephen Douglas' contention that the Constitution barred the federal government from restricting slavery.

But when he considered the nature of the attacks on the Republican Party for its opposition to such an extension of slavery, Lincoln could have been speaking to the present-day American left, particularly those parts that responded to the election by talking about how we could finesse stands on abortion or back off support for gay/lesbian rights. From the speech (emphasis in original):

Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them, if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. ...

[W]hat will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly - done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated - we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas' new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us. ...

They will continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying.

I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the overthrow of our Free-State Constitutions. Yet those Constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn emphasis, than do all other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. ...

[L]et us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man....

LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

The Republicans did not actually advocate the abolition of slavery (thus the reference to "let them alone"), regarding its acceptance a "necessity" because of its extensive existence in the South, but did oppose allowing it to extend beyond the existing slave states and hoped that it would fade away over time.

But that, of course, was not enough for the slavers. And neither will surrendering on any principle here and now satisfy our present-day equivalent. So, like the man said, let us have faith that right makes might and do our duty.

Footnote: Those on the other side might also give some thought to the matter and consider this passage from A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt:

Setting: Sir Thomas More has declined to employ Richard Rich, who has just left the room.
Wife: Arrest him!
More: For what?
Wife: He's dangerous!
Roper: For all we know he's a spy!
Daughter: Father, that man's bad!
More: There's no law against that!
Roper: There is, God's law!
More: Then let God arrest him!
Wife: While you talk he's gone!
More: And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

They, too, should be careful what they wish for.