"Did Lincoln Really Matter?"

In this rather fraught period of political campaigning, the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik has chosen to write a thoughtful “review(?)” of Fergus Bordewich’s Congress at War. Since it’s Gopnik you can be very certain that his essay is going to be a lot more than mere review or summary. He does not let us down.

So, let’s not work over the essay, but with my comments on the first page of my download. I’ve read through it several times. Admittedly, the comments tell you about me, but they tell you a lot more about Gopnik. (You can’t write a response without telling your readers about yourself—consciously or unconsciously.)

In the upper right hand corner, I wrote and circled my comment—“absolutely brilliant—as usual.” Gopnik always fits in that category. That’s why I work at digesting everything he writes.

Further on down, I noted a reference to “subterranean socialism supporting business.” Of course, we had...

subterranean socialism supporting business even before the founding fathers. And we still do. More than ever. And it’s not just Bezos, Zuckerberg or Trump. Any and probably every businessman engages in subterranean socialism. Even in my little free-lance consulting firm. It’s the way our country has always worked. When the socialism is wise, then it’s great for all of us. Not just business. But sometimes, like now, it can also become very corrupting.

Next note was simply, “land-grant colleges.” Far too few understand that many of our greatest universities and colleges were established by congressional radicals in the 19^th century. The list is still inspiring: Cornell, MIT, Ohio State, University of Illinois, Purdue (my wife would tell you that her cousin invented the way to use the sun to heat a house—but his father—a carpenter--had to build the house and prove it before Purdue would award him his engineering doctorate. So he did.) Dozens more schools including the universities of Minnesota, Georgia, Florida, Vermont, Oregon State, Michigan State, Maine, Missouri, Kentucky, etc. and etc. It’s why we have always led the world, not only in graduate education, but also research and development. Just more subterranean socialism. So the public wants to continually limit university support?

Then my note that the soldiers and citizens of West Virginia and Tennessee were pro-union, but not abolitionists. We’ve always had these contradictions in our history, our states, cities and even the populace.

The last note was a double starred four words: “role of political leader.” Best to quote Gopnik: So, all praise to the lawmakers who brought in the rules, paid for the war, built the railroads and created the colleges. May the names of Wade and Stevens rise from the condescension of posterity to a place of greater fame. Stevens stated the moral question of slavery and equality sooner than Lincoln did, and Wade saw that the question was meaningless without the means to make the good cause happen. The body politic, after all, may not be the worst metaphor. A good government does need a head to see the way forward. It also needs a heart to make it feel, and a spine to keep it upright.

It is the job of political leader, in a time of crisis, to make the unthinkable imaginable, for then it will become possible, and soon essential. It’s wrong to say that Lincoln wasn’t central.

**You can read the actual article in the New Yorker, (2/10/20), Adam Gopnik, “Did Lincoln Really Matter?”