Buchanan and Lincoln-the coming of the War

This is a review of the book, "Lincoln, The Decision for War" by Russell McClintock.  My earliest realization that there was an alternate view of the greatness of Abraham Linclon was, when walking home from first grade, Johny Panholzer  said, "My Grandmother hates him because he freed the slaves."  This was in a white school in Washington D.C. in 1946, so his grandmother just may have heard this from a father who wore the uniform of the Confederacy.

Historiography describes the changes in  how historians and the public view past eras, actors and events. While this book is an unbiased recounting of these elements rather than a polemic, it describes how these two men faced the same crisis of impending secession, one a lame duck President, the other a President-elect, during the fateful sixteen weeks between election and inauguration.  In considering this one aspect of Buchanan's presidency alone, the author states (pp 205) After Lincoln's first week in office being finally briefed on the reality of the crisis, " Whether Lincoln knew it or not, in practical terms the policy he marked out was quite similar to Buchanan's."

It contrasts the new fragile anti-slavery Republic party which would control national policy under Lincoln, and the current bifurcated Democratic party, actually the individual who was elected by this party, James Buchanan who was required to actually make decision with not only limited information, but inability to convey specific orders by an incomplete telegraph system.  Now Lincoln after his innauguaration was in his seat where reality, and the limits of action, caused such a shock that he almost physically collapsed within the first month.

James Buchanan may be the worst president ever, but not for his actions during this period.  The calculation should never be the outcome of his presidency, how he failed to act boldly to head off the civil war, but the conditions of his times, for instance that the consensus legal opinion was that a state had a constitutional right to secede.  He should no more be vilified for the war that followed his presidency than F.D.R. should be condemned for not preventing the growth of fascism that lead to America's involvement in WWII.

Both men were the products of all that went before them, from the compromise of slavery enshrined into our Constitution to the evolving economics of labor intensive cotton crops that at the time was predicated on slave labor.  Before this the explosion of popularity of sugar, meant that since it could only be cultivated in the tropics by intensive destructive labor fueled the growth of chattel slavery capture and importation from Africa. Politics followed this, driving a wedge between the two sections of our country, that during the short period of this book came to what was to be a irresolvable head.  Lincoln who is known as "The Great Emancipator" tried his best to never have earned such a title, as the strongest imperative among most Americans, based on analysis of votes, and the words of the President elect was to reach a compromise that would preserve the Union.

For the reader like myself with limited detailed knowledge of this period, assumptions fall in clumps.  Lincoln, far from the steadfast leader whose views were rooted in his deepest beliefs, was vacillating between compromise and war during this period, depending on his audience.  He could be the compromiser, putting preservation of the union first to the satisfaction  of his surrogate in D.C, William H. Seward, while his next speech made demands that defied the sentiment of the deep south, and would make reconciliation impossible.  Also, unknown was that even during his oath of office half of Congress had adjourned, and only the Senate remained to confirm his nominees for his cabinet,  giving the President plenary authority over war or peace.

Unlike Buchanan, Lincoln was elected to deal with this crisis, yet had a mixed mandate of a party with a wide range of sentiments that he had to hold together, while also trying to preserve the union.  McClintock alludes to the transformation of political party, and how this is the backbone of a republican system at times for good and other times impeding the possibilities of solutions.  He also goes into some detail on the media of the day, how public sentiment was swayed by the penny newspaper just as effectively as Cable News and the Internet does in our own day.

The book does describe the drama of the four months covered with such realism that I was hoping for an ending that differed from what happened, but it was not to be.   Russell McClintock has managed to convey this complex narrative in readable  unvarnished language that shows Lincoln and Buchanan as part of a chain of events over which they had limited control.  Real people, real life, real events, and irresolvable tensions- seismic stresses that had reached the point of cataclysmic rupture, that could no more be prevented than the great earthquakes that shatter civilizations