"Garrison vs Lincoln on moral strategy" Topic

Something that might be useful to introduce here is a distinction that the German sociologist Max Weber made between the ethic of moral conviction and the ethic of responsibility, two different ways of thinking about how leaders address moral problems in politics. The ethic of moral conviction was what propelled Garrison; it is the point of view that says one must be true to one's principles and do the right thing, at whatever cost. It has a purity about it that is admirable. The ethic of responsibility takes a different view. It guides moderates (and, as we shall see, Lincoln himself) to the belief that leaders must take responsibility for the totality of effects arising out of their actions. It takes into account the tragic character of history, the fact that one can easily do the right thing at the wrong time, in the wrong way, and do an immense amount of damage to good and innocent parties in the process. Such a distinction does not decide the question, but it does clarify it.

McClay, Wilfred M.. Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story (p. 128). Encounter Books. Kindle Edition.

It does seem to me that Weber's distinction continues to apply today as we debate how to teach slavery. History does indeed have a tragic character, and those who insist on making it into a morality play of angels and devils do damage to the millions of people (masters and slaves alike) trapped -- yes, TRAPPED -- in an evil system, who struggled in various ways to cope with situations in which all choices were bad ones. George Washington is a prime example: he wanted to free his slaves but faced many legal and economic problems, which he was never able to solve. Those who dismiss such failures do injustice, as do those who downplay or ignore the efforts of slaves themselves to survive and indeed sometimes actually to improve their situations even though unable to escape them completely.

Garrison no doubt felt virtuous, as he helped force a bloody war (one great evil to destroy another great evil) but Lincoln had actually to balance conflicting goods, and conflicting evils, and exercise the responsibilities of great power.

Many modern historians seem to prefer the stark black and white of the morality play. Reality ain't that simple.

Key paragraph of Garrison's first editorial in THE LIBERATOR:

I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; -- but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.

It is pretended, that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is not true. On this question of my influence, -- humble as it is,-- is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years -- not perniciously, but beneficially -- not as a curse, but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was right. I desire to thank God, that he enables me to disregard "the fear of man which bringeth a snare," and to speak his truth in its simplicity and power

It is plain that slavery was a great evil. It is likewise plain that a war costing 700,000 dead (in today's population, the equivalent would be about 5 million) is also a great evil. Might the ending of the first have been accomplished without paying the price of the second? (Of course the third factor was preservation of the Union. WAS disunion as great an evil as slavery? I am glad the Union held -- the world needed a strong America, and still does -- but it is not clear to me that slavery and disunion are moral equivalents.)

It is also clear that Lincoln was not willing to fight a war to eliminate slavery. He hated slavery and was glad to act against it when he could, but he said his only goal was preservation of the Union. Having committed to the hideous loss of life in order to preserve Union, he was glad to destroy slavery as well, getting two good things (Union and emancipation) for one very high price.

It is easy to understand Garrison. Understanding Lincoln requires some work.

Worth remembering that without the Garrisons--and the Harriet Beecher Stowes--we don't get the Lincolns. Someone has to keep reminding the electorate that slavery is not something inevitable (or even good) to provide the votes to get Lincoln elected on a program of stopping the spread of slavery and give him the political environment in which he can end it.

It's so terribly, terribly easy for a man holding political power to do the "reasonable" the "practical" thing, and tell himself there is no other "realistic" choice. Kings don't get you far without prophets.

But yes, it's the ones who had to make choices and accept tradeoffs who get beaten up by subsequent generations. The morally pure get unmixed praise--so long as their cause ultimately triumphs.

robert, yes, agreed to almost all of that.

Do you consider John Brown in the same category as Garrison? And is Douglass in the same category as Lincoln?

Also, do you think Republican opposition to the spread of slavery was PRIMARILY ethically based? I don't. "Free soil, free labor, free men." Many northerners, including the base of Lincoln's party, didn't want to compete with slave labor, and wanted the west as White Man's Country. Always important to distinguish between slavery and racism. The first weas confined to the south; the second, not in the slighest.

There is a direct connection, in my view, between Garrison (and Beecher) and John Brown. And weighing HIM in a moral balance is VERY difficult. Is a mass murderer is justified in a good cause? If not, neither are those who buy him the guns.

Which is to say (again), the myopic focus on southern ethical failure can blind us to the exceedingly difficult moral calculus on the other side.

23rd, yes, huge progression from inaugural one to inaugural two. And of course Lincoln in #2 acknowledges the north's shared fault with the south; God's judgement falls on both.

Lincoln is our greatest president after Washington, and my admiration for him is vast. But of course he was a man of his times, and this (from his speech on the Dred Scott decision) jars us. But most Americans would have agreed with it even when I was born (1946). Acceptance of intermarriage is a huge (and good) change, and it is, at some point (high school) worth pointing out to students how MUCH has changed and how recently in this regard.

But Judge Douglas is especially horrified at the thought of the mixing blood by the white and black races: agreed for once-a thousand times agreed. There are white men enough to marry all the white women, and black men enough to marry all the black women; and so let them be married. On this point we fully agree with the Judge; and when he shall show that his policy is better adapted to prevent amalgamation than ours we shall drop ours, and adopt his. Let us see. In 1850 there were in the United States, 405,751, mulattoes. Very few of these are the offspring of whites and free blacks; nearly all have sprung from black slaves and white masters. A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation but as an immediate separation is impossible the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas. That is at least one self-evident truth. A few free colored persons may get into the free States, in any event; but their number is too insignificant to amount to much in the way of mixing blood. In 1850 there were in the free states, 56,649 mulattoes; but for the most part they were not born there-they came from the slave States, ready made up. In the same year the slave States had 348,874 mulattoes all of home production. The proportion of free mulattoes to free blacks-the only colored classes in the free states-is much greater in the slave than in the free states. It is worthy of note too, that among the free states those which make the colored man the nearest to equal the white, have, proportionally the fewest mulattoes the least of amalgamation. In New Hampshire, the State which goes farthest towards equality between the races, there are just 184 Mulattoes while there are in Virginia-how many do you think? 79,775, being 23,126 more than in all the free States together. These statistics show that slavery is the greatest source of amalgamation; and next to it, not the elevation, but the degeneration of the free blacks. Yet Judge Douglas dreads the slightest restraints on the spread of slavery, and the slightest human recognition of the negro, as tending horribly to amalgamation.

This very Dred Scott case affords a strong test as to which party most favors amalgamation, the Republicans or the dear Union-saving Democracy. Dred Scott, his wife and two daughters were all involved in the suit. We desired the court to have held that they were citizens so far at least as to entitle them to a hearing as to whether they were free or not; and then, also, that they were in fact and in law really free. Could we have had our way, the chances of these black girls, ever mixing their blood with that of white people, would have been diminished at least to the extent that it could not have been without their consent. But Judge Douglas is delighted to have them decided to be slaves, and not human enough to have a hearing, even if they were free, and thus left subject to the forced concubinage of their masters, and liable to become the mothers of mulattoes in spite of themselves-the very state of case that produces nine tenths of all the mulattoes-all the mixing of blood in the nation.

Of course, I state this case as an illustration only, not meaning to say or intimate that the master of Dred Scott and his family, or any more than a percentage of masters generally, are inclined to exercise this particular power which they hold over their female slaves.

I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation. I have no right to say all the members of the Republican party are in favor of this, nor to say that as a party they are in favor of it. There is nothing in their platform directly on the subject. But I can say a very large proportion of its members are for it, and that the chief plank in their platform-opposition to the spread of slavery-is most favorable to that separation.

Such separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by colonization; and no political party, as such, is now doing anything directly for colonization. Party operations at present only favor or retard colonization incidentally. The enterprise is a difficult one; but "when there is a will there is a way;" and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.

This is earlier in the same speech:

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people, to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races; and Judge Douglas evidently is basing his chief hope, upon the chances of being able to appropriate the benefit of this disgust to himself. If he can, by much drumming and repeating, fasten the odium of that idea upon his adversaries, he thinks he can struggle through the storm. He therefore clings to this hope, as a drowning man to the last plank. He makes an occasion for lugging it in from the opposition to the Dred Scott decision. He finds the Republicans insisting that the Declaration of Independence includes ALL men, black as well as white; and forth-with he boldly denies that it includes negroes at all, and proceeds to argue gravely that all who contend it does, do so only because they want to vote, and eat, and sleep, and marry with negroes! He will have it that they cannot be consistent else. Now I protest against that counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for either, I can just leave her alone. In some respects she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.

And again, were we magically carried back to the 1850s, we would in all likelihood agree with Lincoln and Douglass in rejecting racial amalgamation. And were they magically brought to our time, they would almost certainly accept it as we do.

But huge changes like that take time, and not everyone accepts change at the same pace.

Lincoln summed it up well when he said: "The severest justice may not always be the best policy."

I waffle quite a bit on Brown. War must be waged in a good cause, certainly. And that he got right. There have been few better ones. But war must be waged as humanely as possible without unnecessary prolongation, and that he failed in Kansas. And most importantly, admitting few exceptions, it is utterly immoral to go to war without a good plan for winning it. The Harper's Ferry raid was one of the most poorly thought-out military actions imaginable, and John Brown and his backers are as much responsible for those futile deaths as they would be if they'd driven down a road blindfolded. Faith in God and a righteous cause don't let you skip the planning stage of warfare, any more than if you build a cathedral on sand.

I'd cut Frederick Douglass more slack--a brave and wise man, and arguably a brilliant one. But his people were in desperate straits, and he'd never fought or studied war. It's more understandable that one time he believed what he wanted to be true without looking at it closely enough.

Oh. Watch the s's. Douglas did not believe in racial amalgamation, but Douglass demonstrably did.

Lincoln is our greatest president after Washington…

Without Washington there would have been no Lincoln. And without Washington there might have been no United States, at least not as we know it.

There were two indispensable men in the Revolution: Washington and Franklin.

Comparing John Brown with Frederick Douglass is insulting to the latter and a great compliment to the former. Brown was a terrorist and a murderer. Douglass did his utmost for his country and both his sons served in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of them becoming the regiment's SgtMaj.

And if I recall correctly, Douglass refused Brown's offer of working together as Brown's way was violence and murder.

Sorry for the s confusion. I meant Stephen Douglas, as the Lincoln quotes were from his speech about Dred Scott, part of the L-D debates.

Fred Douglass refused JB's plan for Harpers Ferry but he was all in with JB's plan to wage guerilla war from the mountains of west Virginia. It was not that JB's way involved violence; Douglass was okay with that.

23rd, Lincoln quite explicitly refers to the bloodshed as God's judgement falling on both parts of the nation. Because both parts shared complicity. Molasses to rum to slaves.

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses 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 offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him.

As he recalled in 1881's Life and times of Frederick Douglass, Brown immediately impressed his guest with his "lean, strong and sinewy build" and the way "his children observed him with reverence."

But it was Brown's impassioned words that made the biggest mark, as he spoke of a plan to free the enslaved and squirrel them to freedom through the Alleghany Mountains.

His measured responses to Douglass' questions showed he had given the matter careful thought. Armed men would be stationed at strategic checkpoints, he explained, from where they would slip down to towns to rally the enslaved and acquire provisions. And even if authorities managed to corner them, what better way to die than for such a noble cause?

FD helped JB get guns and recruit men.

An interesting discussion – however based on the original posters statement reiterating another of the "Lost Cause" proclamations about slaves being better off in America than back in Africa – or look at all the good we did for the black people.

Quote from above – "Those who dismiss such failures do injustice, as do those who downplay or ignore the efforts of slaves themselves to survive and indeed sometimes actually to improve their situations even though unable to escape them completely."

While slaves and people under other related words used for slavery or involuntary servitude across the ages can all to have said to have gotten housing, food, skills, travel, and lots of other things – they weren't free. Yes people managed to escape or rise above the conditions that others placed them in is remarkable – but that is not because of the opportunities slavery gave them – it was and is because of the people and individuals themselves.

While I regard George Washington as one of our greatest leaders in War and Politics – he actually paid some of his slaves for their teeth – certainly bettering their lives as I am sure they willing to lose their teeth for their Master

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Interesting how the supporters of the "Lost Cause" continually try and update the mythos hoping to breed a new generation who they can try to convince of their high morals

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To add to the other part of the discussion – would just add – reading Washsingtons words on the Principles of Justice and Humanity as they related to Native Americans shows the quandary he faced with his beliefs and the new republic

One of the best pieces on the Lost Cause out of the New Yorker a few years back

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"Jefferson Davis, the former President of the Confederacy, whose large memorial has now been toppled in Richmond. After he was released from prison, in 1867, without ever having been tried for treason, Davis gave a heartbeat to the Lost Cause story. His two-volume, 1,279-page memoir, "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government" (1881), is the longest and most self-righteous legal brief on behalf of a failed political movement ever produced by an American. Davis laid all responsibility for secession and the war on the "unlimited, despotic power" of the North. To Davis, slavery was in no way the cause of the conflict, and yet, like almost all Lost Causers, he went on at great length to defend the enslavement of blacks. Black people had already been enslaved in Africa, Davis argued. In America, they had been "trained in the gentle arts of peace and order," and advanced from "unprofitable savages to millions of efficient Christian laborers." The "magic word of ‘freedom' " had ruined this peaceful world like the "tempter . . . the Serpent in Eden.""

Wikipedia also has a detailed history of the Lost Cause

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I owe Douglass an apology. My recollection was that he saw Harper's Ferry as a preliminary to the guerilla campaign.

As for the "lost cause" one needn't look that far to find people convinced that [other] people need a strong hand to guide them and their physical needs taken care of more than they need freedom. I have heard prominent politicians of both American parties say as much--once (by a noted leftist) in ways so like Big Sam in Gone with the Wind they might have been a summary. Almost everyone can spot disastrous ideas when they're dressed in frock coats, hoops skirts and bustles. The trick is to recognize them when they come back wearing jeans, logoed T-shirts and running shoes.

Well said Robert

…he was all in with JB's plan to wage guerilla war from the mountains of west Virginia. It was not that JB's way involved violence; Douglass was okay with that.

Source(s) and reference(s)?

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The awkward little fact is that African-Americans today are immensely better off than Africans in all the measurable standards. This was recognized early on; see Phylis Wheatley's poem. Of course the slavers' motives were greed, but God uses men's sin to work His good anyhow. Whatever the intent, there was a great deal of good in the result.

On Being Brought from Africa to America
BY PHILLIS WHEATLEY

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

Oh my, what shall we do about this awkward little fact? (Because PW's poem is a FACT.) I know, let's ignore it and call it names ("Lost Cause").

Douglass's autobiography

His plan as it then lay in his mind had much to commend it. It did not, as some suppose, contemplate a general rising among the slaves, and a general slaughter of the slave-masters. An insurrection, he thought, would only defeat the object; but his plan did contemplate the creating of an armed force which should act in the very heart of the South. He was not averse to the shedding of blood, and thought the practice of carrying arms would be a good one for the colored people to adopt, as it would give them a sense of their manhood. No people, he said, could have self-respect, or he respected, who would not fight for their freedom. He called my attention to a map of the United States, and pointed out to me the far-reaching Alleghanies, which stretch away from the borders of New York into the Southern States. "These mountains," he said, "are the basis of my plan. God has given the strength of the hills to freedom; they were placed here for the emancipation of the negro race; they are full of natural forts, where one man for defense will be equal to a hundred for attack; they are full also of good hiding-places, where large numbers of brave men could be concealed, and baffle and elude pursuit for a long time. I know these mountains well, and could take a body of men into them and keep them there despite of all the efforts of Virginia to dislodge them. The true object to be sought is first of all to destroy the money value of slave property; and that can only be done by rendering such property insecure. My plan, then, is to take at first about twenty-five picked men, and begin on a small scale; supply them with arms and ammunition and post them in squads of fives on a line of twenty-five miles. The most persuasive and judicious of these shall go down to the fields from time to time, as opportunity offers, and induce the slaves to join them, seeking and selecting the most restless and daring." He saw that in this part of the work the utmost care must be used to avoid treachery and disclosure. Only the most conscientious and skillful should be sent on this perilous duty. With care and enterprise he thought he could soon gather a force of one hundred hardy men, men who would be content to lead the free and adventurous life to which he proposed to train them; when these were properly drilled, and each man had found the place for which he was best suited, they would begin work in earnest; they would run off the slaves in large numbers, retain the brave and strong ones in the mountains, and send the weak and timid to the north by the underground railroad. His operations would be enlarged with increasing numbers and would not be confined to one locality. When I asked him how he would support these men, he said emphatically that he would subsist them upon the enemy. Slavery was a state of war, and the slave had a right to anything necessary to his freedom. "But," said I, "suppose you succeed in running off a few slaves, and thus impress the Virginia slaveholders with a sense of insecurity in their slaves, the effect will be only to make them sell their slaves further south." "That," said he, "will be what I want first to do; then I would follow them up. If we could drive slavery out of one county, it would be a great gain; it would weaken the system throughout the State." "But they would employ bloodhounds to hunt you out of the mountains." "That they might attempt," said he, "but the chances are, we should whip them, and when we should have whipped one squad, they would be careful how they pursued." "But you might be surrounded and cut off from your provisions or means of subsistence." He thought that this could not be done so they could not cut their way out, but even if the worst came he could but be killed, and he had no better use for his life than to lay it down in the cause of the slave. When I suggested that we might convert the slaveholders, he became much excited, and said that could never be, "he knew their proud hearts and that they would never be induced to give up their slaves, until they felt a big stick about their heads." He observed that I might have noticed the simple manner in which he lived, adding that he had adopted this method in order to save money to carry out his purposes. This was said in no boastful tone, for he felt that he had delayed already too long, and had no room to boast either his zeal or his self-denial. Had some men made such display of rigid virtue, I should have rejected it, as affected, false, and hypocritical, but in John Brown, I felt it to be real as iron or granite. From this night spent with John Brown in Springfield, Mass., 1847, while I continued to write and speak against slavery, I became all the same less hopeful of its peaceful abolition.

Douglass, Frederick. The Life & Times of Frederick Douglass: His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape From Bondage and His Complete Life Story (pp. 315-316). Musaicum Books. Kindle Edition.

doc will let your statements speak for themselves

BTW you might want to look up some of the actual meanings of the poem – ranging from religion, equality and the hypocrisy of Christians – versus your implications

@DisasterWargamer

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I didnt realize how Washington's oral hygiene order contributed to the victory at Yorktown. Not only did it allow him to sink his teeth into Cornwallis but it shows you that it pays to floss before you go to bed…even if your teeth are prosthetics.

Oh, it is a complex poem, for sure. But the "actual meaning" is that she was thankful to be in America as a Christian.

If you don't want to debate, why are you here?

Life in sub-Sahara Africa was not idyllic; slaves BECAME such as a result of war or aggressive slave-hunting by fellow Africans. But if one STARTS with an assumption of enslavement, there are better and worse alternatives. Being taken to an Arab country and being castrated. Being taken to a Caribbean colony and dying quickly. Being taken to North America and living long enough to reproduce. None is GOOD, but it is not that clear that all were worse than life back home, and some are plainly better than others. Good can come from evil and frequently does, one way we know there is a God.

Church tradition is that there were Christians in the Coliseum who ran to embrace the lions. Did that make Nero a good guy? No. But persecution (or slavery) can have good consequences, which does not in the slightest excuse the persecutors or enslavers. "It is necessary that evil come, but woe to him through whom it comes."

It is, as usual, complicated.

Sorry for the s confusion. I meant Stephen Douglas

All that has to be remembered is that Stephen Douglas has one 's' and Frederick Douglass has two. 👍

and that one is named Steve and the other is named Fred

and that one is named Steve and the other is named Fred

And one was tall and one was short.