Wartime Powers Report: Abraham Lincoln's Use of Power

Wartime Powers Report: Abraham Lincoln's Use of Power

Introduction

Abraham Lincoln is unanimously ranked as the greatest U.S. president by the presidential scholars all over the world. One mark of his lasting and durable influence as a president is the fact that more newsletters, journals, books, and organizations have been dedicated to safeguarding his legacy as compare to any other president. His president ship is one of the best gifts of the United States democracy to the planet. He started growing as a leader with early life experiences and brought these experiences into play to lead the country during its most complicated time that is the Civil War.

Discussion

The Context

Abraham Lincoln's contribution to political theory may be analyzed in terms of the theoretical, practical, and historical implications of his thought and leadership. Theoretically, his speeches and writings provide one of the greatest moral justifications of democracy ever given to the world. Practically, his actions provide a model of prudent statesman-ship that is, the ability to apply moral principles correctly under the legal, social, and political circumstances of the time. Historically, he is at the center of America's national myth, the sustaining narrative that defines us as a common people based not on blood, but on fidelity to the principles of the Declaration. As the embodiment of the American experiment, Lincoln has represented the following things to the American people: the great emancipator, the savior of the Union, the self-made man, the first American, and the man of the people.

Although he was not a political theorist per se, Lincoln articulated some of the most profound and enduring insights about the nature of equality, liberty, democracy, constitutionalism, and the meaning and destiny of the American experiment in self-government. His Gettysburg Address, which distilled the essence of the American creed, famously defines democracy as a form of government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Lincoln probed the moral foundations of democracy to vindicate the American regime from the hypocrisy of slavery. He was compelled to provide a coherent understanding of democracy and its core principle of equal consent in response to the twin threats of slavery and disunion. Lincoln maintained that equality was “the central idea” of the American regime and the father of all moral principle. And he viewed equality as an inclusive principle that applied in the abstract to all individual human beings at all times. Moreover, his view of equality appreciated both the dignity and depravity of our common human nature. Thus, no one can be entrusted with absolute power over another. In sum, Lincoln emphasized that the core principle of democracy, equal consent, was utterly incompatible with slavery.

This view of equality and consent was the moral touchstone of Lincoln's leadership as opposed to proslavery rivals from both South and North. For example, in contrast to Lincoln's view, Southern disciples of John C. Calhoun understood the principle of equality in collective terms, as applying to the equal rights of states and to the corporate body ...