Mark and Lincoln: And Unfinished Revolution

“the whole country is our soil.”
56
 But above and beyond the impor-
tance of defending the whole territory of the former Union was 
the claim that the North was defending a new Union that would 
correspond more closely to the democratic nation state cherished 
by so many nineteenth-century nationalists.
57
 In his famous address 
at Gettysburg Lincoln underlined the “new birth of freedom” that 
must inform and infuse the military struggle. He used the word 
nation, with its warm resonance, fi ve times, in preference to the 
fl atter term union. Was this rebirth defi ned by slave emancipation 
or was it simply a vindication of American “principles of self-gov-
ernment”? Both interpretations were available. Th
  e rebirth of the 
national spirit was something that many immigrants as well as 
natives would be able to understand, because they came from lands 
like Germany and Ireland where the national revolution was as yet 
unconsummated. (Th
  e Irish Fenians strongly supported the North, 
helping to organize a number of units). And as revolutionary and 
democratic nationalists, they were less inclined to be fi xated  by 
given political forms, such as the US Constitution. 
European nationalisms, with their dominant ethnicities and 
religions, had their own problems with reconciling rival concepts 
and recognizing minorities. Th
  e Republicans had shied away from 
crude nativism, but without embracing the radical abolitionist call 
for equality. Th
  e formulas expressed by Lincoln at Gettysburg did 
not off er citizenship to the freedmen (nor to American Indians), 
though Northern European Protestant immigrants somehow fi t in. 
Dorothy Ross urged that Gettysburg marks a step back from the 
universalism of the Declaration of Independence: 
Lincoln transforms a truth open to each man as man into some-
thing he shares by virtue of his partnership in the nation…Lincoln 
solved the moral confl ict he faced between principles and national 
survival by linking human rights to national allegiance, but human 
rights became the subordinate partner.
58
 
56  James McPherson, “A. Lincoln, Commander in Chief,” in Our Lincoln, 
Eric Foner, ed., New York 2009, p. 33.
57  For the evolution of Unionist nationalism, see Bensel, Yankee Leviathan, 
pp. 18–47.
58  Dorothy Ross, “Lincoln and the Ethics of Emancipation: Universalism, 
introduction  41

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However, one could say that lofty statements of rights desperately 
need to be brought down to earth and that at least Lincoln was 
pushing in that direction (Marx inclined to this conclusion). But 
at the time of Gettysburg, slavery was not yet fi nished, and what 
remained of it might still be given a new lease of life in the event 
of the Northern peace party gaining the upper hand. Th
 e Radical 
concern to get some sweeping and thorough antislavery measure 
agreed upon—perhaps a Th
  irteenth Amendment—stemmed from 
this fear. 
Th
  e leaders of the North faced more dissidence than did those 
of the South. Th
  e war’s heavy toll on life and the North’s failure to 
infl ict decisive defeats on the Confederate forces led “copperhead” 
Democrats to hanker for peace talks. Conscription led to violent 
draft riots in 1863 in New York and other urban centers, with the 
rioters attacking blacks as the supposed cause of the confl ict. But 
even New England abolitionists with impeccable patriot creden-
tials could doubt whether war was the right way to impose their 
section’s superior civilization. Th
  e avowed abolitionist (and future 
chief justice) Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., as a young offi
  cer who had 
just experienced several terrible, bloody engagements, wrote to his 
orthodox Republican father: 
If it is true that we represent civilization wh. is in its nature, as well 
as slavery, diff use & aggressive, and if civn and progress are better 
things why they will conquer in the long run, we may be sure, and 
will stand a better chance in their proper province—peace—than 
in war, the brother of slavery—it is slavery’s parent, child and sus-
tainer all at once.
59
 
What Holmes here refers to as civilization and progress are forces 
that Marx would have seen as capitalism or the advance of bour-
geois social relations. Th
  e sentiments expressed point to pacifi sm 
rather than anti-imperialism. Th
  e idea is that one way or another 
the North is going to prevail, so why not do so in a kinder, gentler 
way? Th
 e North’s ownership of the future is set down to the 
Nationalism and Exceptionalism,” Journal of American History, 96: 2, September 
2009, p. 346.
59 Louis 
Menand, 
Th
  e Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, New 
York 2001, p. 45.
42  an unfinished revolution

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extraordinary locomotive of its capitalist economy. Marx himself 
probably would have agreed that the North would prevail in any 
case, but would have added that 300,000 slaveholders were not 
going to give up their human property without a continuing fi ght.
Holmes’s letter was written in December 1862, at a time when the 
consequences and character of the emancipation policy were not yet 
clear. Without abandoning all his misgivings, Holmes became more 
committed to the war over the next year or two. His enthusiasm for 
the Union cause was boosted by the bravery of the black soldiers in 
the assault of Fort Wagner, by revulsion at the racial attacks in New 
York, and, fi nally, by the growing eff ectiveness of the Northern war 
machine, which at last made all the bloodshed seem to be to some 
purpose after all.
60
 Th
 e fl uctuations of Northern morale illustrated 
the old saw that nothing succeeds like success.
Th
  e gradual improvement in the Union’s military position, espe-
cially the taking of Vicksburg in July 1863, allowed for a greater 
application of the emancipation policy, as Union forces broke 
through into territories where there were large numbers of slaves. A 
static war, and one focused on set-piece engagements, meant that 
the slaves in the Confederate rear areas had little chance of playing 
any role. Th
  e majority of African Americans who enrolled, includ-
ing slaves, came from areas already controlled by the Union. Indeed, 
many tens of thousands of them came from Kentucky, since, as the 
loyal slaveholders had warned, Union commanders had no way 
of knowing whether a black recruit was someone’s property or, if 
he was, what the home state or political stance of that property 
owner might be. Heavy troop losses—and black losses were very 
heavy—meant that commanders were disinclined to ask awkward 
questions. For their part, the new recruits saw enlistment as a good 
way to escape bondage, even if it was also an illegal one. (Legal 
slavery actually outlasted the Confederacy and was only formally 
ended towards the close of 1865, when the Th
 irteenth Amendment, 
introduced by the Congressional Radicals, was fi nally endorsed by 
the requisite qualifi ed majority of states.)
Th
 e advantages of an “aggressive” emancipation policy—one 
that aimed to penetrate Confederate lines—were logistical, as well 
60 Menand, 
Th
  e Metaphysical Club, pp. 52–3.
introduction  43

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