So The Time Has Come

The BBC reports this week that, from the beginning of the 2008 / 09 academic year, Britain's involvement in the slave trade is to be studied by all secondary pupils in England.

When I began university, I studied a core module in the first year called "Black Atlantic: Slavery and it's Legacies". The title, you may notice, is related to a book by Paul Gilroy, but that's not the point. I came out of the first lecture scared. I was not scared by the horrors of slavery (I guess the MTV generation has become passive to images and tales of gore and suffering), but what troubled me personally was that I had gone through my entire childhood without realising that Britain -- the country of which I had always considered myself but a loyal servant -- committed one of the most terrible crimes of modern civilisation. I knew of the Holocaust, which accounted for the deaths of millions of people because of their religion, but I knew not of fates worse than death bore out by African people over timescales of centuries instead of decades. I felt ignorant and out of touch with a passage of history so gruesome and wrong that I simply began to crave knowledge and understanding on a phenomenal and bewildering scale.

What hurt the most was the sudden realisation that slavery and the slave trade mattered. They mattered as early as the sixteenth century, and they still matter here in the twenty-first.

I studied my degree at the University of Liverpool John Moores: the streets I walked down to get to class were, and still are, named after the slave traders. Under the picture on the BBC web site, the caption reads: "pupils will be urged to look at the long term impacts of slavery". While this simply has to be the case if the learning is to be worthwhile, it is worth remembering that the legacies of slavery are not purely aesthetic in terms of the microcosm of Liverpool. As often as raindrops fall upon Liverpool the city tries to cleanse itself, yet it longs for a cleanliness which seems to forever be out of reach, as the raindrops come laced with the blood of the slaves. The same is true of Bristol. The same is true of London.

The only time I ever came close to touching upon the slave trade was in the sixth form at school, when I was studying A-level government & politics. We learnt of about thirty Supreme Court cases in a single one hour lesson. Dred Scott vs Sandford, 1857 passed by in a single sentence: "no slave could be a citizen of the United States" said the teacher. "Next one, Plessy vs Ferguson, 1897," he continued, "the legalisation of segregation in America. This was overturned in the 50's with the case Brown vs Board of Education." In about thirty seconds we covered the spine of African-American history with regard to the U.S. Supreme Court. I can't recall them being mentioned again in class, but I still remember thinking at the time: "slaves? Segregation? There's no connection there." Thankfully I did my reading and I did my research. Twelve months later, in my first year at university.

Until now, the neglect of the slave trade and slavery from the curriculum sticks out like a sore thumb. To not teach the slave trade and slavery and the legacies of both is to effectively deny that they happened.

There's currently a 'comment' up on the BBC web site simply saying the teaching of slavery should not be compulsory, made by Vic, UK. Hmmm. Should pupils learn the concept of equality? Are people of African descent equal to people of European descent? Should pupils learn that everyone should be judged by the content of their character and not by the colour of their skin? (I am assuming the answer is an unwavering 'yes', there). By making slavery compulsory it makes the civil rights movement easier to contextualise -- I find it hard to believe I read King's speech and discussed it in class without taking slavery and the slave trade into account whatsoever. The philosophy of Malcolm X is so misunderstood in high school history that schools won't touch it with a barge pole. On face value it's an angry black man shouting "the white man is the devil!" He shouts the white man is the devil because the white man enslaved the black man for three hundred years, and even though Lincoln "freed" the slaves in 1865, African-Americans were still not free when he (Malcolm X) was assassinated and were still second-class citizens then, 100 years after "freedom". Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

The election of Barack Obama to the White House will not put an end to racial prejudice, in the same way that racial prejudice did not begin with the slave trade. But the picture is a complex one: racial prejudice, the political career of Barack Obama, and the slave trade are all carefully interwoven. You can't learn about two of them without the third one. In between these three, of course, there are many more important factors which also cannot be ignored...

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright

Whiteness and Colour-Blindness

Whiteness can be defined to be a shifting and malleable (and often transparent) socially constructed group, comprised of members who often fail to recognise their membership, but nevertheless benefit not only from the group being the dominant and normative sociological catagory in the United States, but also from a system of favours, exchanges and courtesies which remain unavailable to people excluded from the grouping.1 In conjunction with this, colour-blindness can be defined as the equal treatment of each individual person, by negating all racial characteristics and focusing purely on, and judging them solely by, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘the content of their character’.

The unmistakable existence of whiteness in the United States is a worrying phenomenon. What the characteristics of whiteness ‘do’ in relation to and in conjunction with the advocacy of colour-blindness is something of an unexplored frontier in race studies. It is my intention in this essay to demonstrate why no truly colour-blind philosophy can exist in the United States alongside and parallel to whiteness.

When advocated as part of a neo-conservative philosophy (Reaganism, for example, in the 1980’s), colour-blindness takes on the mantle of preserving the privileges associated with whiteness. As Winant (2001) puts it:

‘[M]any whites came to support a conservative and individualistic form of egalitarianism, thus upholding a supposedly “colourblind” (but actually deeply race-conscious) position.2’

Whether or not this mantle is assumed consciously or subconsciously is difficult to know, and is probably down to the individual believer, but the end result is the same: colour-blindness becomes a vehicle for the protection of whiteness and the privileges that are associated with it.

Yet while Winant asserts this position to be a ‘deeply race-conscious’ one, it is also important to recognise that the quality of whiteness within an individual’s make-up is not always recognised by the proponent of the ideology. Reason and Evans (2007) phrase it as: ‘[w]hiteness is not a salient feature of [white student’s] identities and remains unexamined. These students subscribe to a colour-blind ideology.3’ It is this hidden unconscious facade of whiteness which leads Williams to assume that the white children who forced her to see her blackness as a mark probably never learned to see that their whiteness was a mark.4 This is even more extraordinary, of course, when we consider that while both whiteness and blackness are dangerous social constructions, void of any scientific grounding or meaning, the former is infinitely more false than the latter.5

We are presented at this point with two fundamental issues: one is the danger of whiteness as a social construction, and the second is an unsalient understanding of it within the white conceptualisation of race, and specifically a colour-blind ideology. The emerging issue which thus presents itself before us is the abolition of whiteness (and how it is possibly going to be achieved), and what the consequences are for any notion of colour-blindness.

David Roediger is the most prominent scholar on the issue of eliminating whiteness and white privilege. What he advocates in his 1994 Towards the Abolition of Whiteness is a complete reconceptualisation of race to incorporate a fuller understanding of whiteness. The institutionalised nature of race and more specifically whiteness creates a form of alienation which is ‘produced by bureaucratic structures and commercialised culture [and] helps to undergird ersatz ethnicity among whites.6’ The deduction from this that systemised changes are required might not be a new insight, but to view the process of change as one of ‘unwhitening’ is crucial in order to negate the othering of non-white people in US society.

Lewis’s (2004) observation that ‘the racialisation of whites is inherently at some level about domination because the category’s very existence is dependent on the continuation of white supremacy7’ underscores the importance of the infrastructure of the United States being a ‘white’ one. White supremacy is now subvertly expressed in post-transformation America through institutionalised channels. Furthermore, unwhitening the US system and making it more ethnically diverse would: first, make institutionalised systems more representative of the nation as a whole and serve the country more effectively; and second, and most importantly for us, deal a severe blow to the concept of whiteness. If Lewis is right about the invention of the ‘white race’ (Ted Allen’s phrase) relying upon its institutional dominance for survival, then unwhitening the system would drastically reduce the lifespan of the notion of whiteness.

When the power structures are so dominated by ’white’ people and people who passively benefit from the privileges of whiteness and do not realise it (as they are at the moment, even though Barack Obama is looking certain to be the Democratic nominee for the Presidency), the notion of colour-blindness cannot be a true and authentic one. Indeed, it takes on neo-racist undertones as it does when expressed as part of a neo-conservative agenda. At the present time, advocates of colour-blindness within the power structures, who stress that there is no need for race-specific policies, make the bold and wrong assumption that current distributive shares are the fair outcome of individual initiatives. The fact that ‘white’ people benefit and continue to benefit from institutional racism is not acknowledged.8 Ultimately, within these power structures, ‘the rhetoric of equal treatment and colo[u]r blindness operates to normalize whiteness.9’

The qualities of whiteness which underpin the institutionalised structures are built around a categorisation which is, plain and simply, false. The ‘invention of the white race’, is, in the words of Roediger, nothing but oppressive and false.10 One by one, ‘specific ethnic cultures always stand in danger of being swallowed by the lie of whiteness.11’ As George Yancy puts it, ‘in short, whites frequently lie to themselves.12’ Yancy goes on to note:

‘A key feature of the social ontology of whiteness is that whites attempt to avoid discussing their own social, political, economic, and cultural investments in whiteness. Many whites fail to see their complicity with the systemic workings …13’

This failure to see just about anything within the self or the system is an issue for colour-blindness. It is colour-blindness which has morphed into simple complete and utter blindness. Popular culture often portrays whiteness as being in association with or one and the same as goodness and innocence; darkness and blackness, in contrast, often carry connotations of evil and menace.14 I mention this here because it is fair to cast these portrayals as lies as well. Whiteness is an inherently false categorisation built on and perpetuating lies, both about itself and blackness, and while this is the case, colour-blind ideologies exist only as lies as well. An honest move would be to abolish whiteness and the privileges associated with it; if this could be achieved, it would be far easier for each individual to be honest with themselves and this would be a great step towards an honest colour-blind society.

Morrison offers us an explanation of why specific ethnic cultures become ‘white’. New immigrant populations entering the United States for the first time understood their ‘Americanness’ as an opposition to the resident black population, because ‘America means white.15’ I would assert that this is due in part to the institutionalised and systemisation of whiteness already outlined. What in effect happened was once new immigrant populations (such as the Irish16 or the Italians) arrived, they gradually grew to be part of the ‘white race’ and learnt to see themselves as, first and foremost, white. As Jay (1998) noted when describing the development of the United States, ‘the American race originated as a white race.17’

Breaking the connection between perceived Americanness and being ‘white’ will not be easy. Culturally, steps have already been taken, but more needs to be done. Bruce Springsteen’s song ‘American Skin (41 Shots)’ for example, about the shooting of Amadou Diallo by New York City police officers in February of 1999, is just one explicit attempt to rebrand what it is to be ‘American’: Diallo had moved to New York City only three years previous, after growing up in Singapore, Liberia, Togo, Bangkok and Guinea. One Bruce Springsteen song -- a song which is yet to be recorded on a studio album -- cannot make much difference, but the portrayal of people like Diallo is crucial if colour-blindness is going to mean anything. Colour-blindness in the United States can mean very little if being ‘white’ is a pre-condition to being seen as truly American. The abolishment of whiteness would serve to break the connection between being ‘white’ and being American, and perhaps once that has happened it will be easier for people like Toni Morrison to see themselves as American. ‘Africanist people struggle,’ she writes, ‘to make the term [American] applicable to themselves with ethnicity and hyphen after hyphen after hyphen.18’

One of Roediger’s principle concerns about other races and ethnicities coming to see themselves as ‘white’ is the cultural impact it has. If each various ethnicity comes to the United States and puts on the mask of whiteness, then they are not developing into another culture because, as Roediger says,

‘whiteness describes … not a culture, but precisely the absence of culture. It is the empty and therefore terrifying attempt to build an identity based on what one isn’t and on whom one can hold back.19’

The cultural losses of assuming whiteness far outnumber the cultural gains, but the day-to-day benefits make it worthwhile.

Roediger insists that whiteness is, in all honesty, void of culture. As a result of this, it has been argued that ‘white’ people try and usurp other cultures and claim their activities as their own. Dalton Conley tells how ‘white’ teenagers shirk ‘white’ cultural practices (whatever they happen to be at the time), and gravitate towards blackness in the form of hip hop. This, he claims, is no romantic kinship, but is in fact just one example of whites exerting their cultural dominance.20

Nevertheless, Roediger is wrong to argue that whiteness has absolutely no culture whatsoever. The question has to be asked that, if this is the case, then is the power of whiteness in no way cultural? This is probably not so, because, as Yancy notes, ‘the power of whiteness (white supremacy) manifests itself in many forms, but it still remains whiteness (white supremacy).21’ It is, of course, possible for whiteness to exert its power through cultural forms often associated with non-white races and ethnicities.

The far-fetched assumption is also made by a number of neo-abolitionists that cultures ‘belong’ to racial groups, and that there are clear and identifiable lines that separate racialised peoples22. The hybridity argument is damaging to this assumption. As Vron Ware notes:

‘… kinds interviewed by The Sunday Times could not think of anything that was purely English because all national cultures are in fact ‘irretrievably hybrid’ and constantly evolving.23’

In addition to this, Toni Morrison makes some fascinating and relevant observations about the development of nineteenth century American literature. It is true that the writers were mostly white males, (Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), but there was some female representation in the form of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emily Dickinson, and, slightly later, Willa Cather. (Indeed, Morrison argues that the architecture of a ‘new white man’ has forever been the principle concern of American literature.24) Furthermore, the subject matter of these writers was very often influenced by a ‘dark presence’ and novels and poems repeatedly dealt with the black population. ‘Africanism,’ claims Morrison, was ‘the staging ground and arena for the elaboration of the quintessential American identity.25’ Moreover, Morrison writes:

‘Whatever their personal and formally political responses to the inherent contradiction of a free republic deeply committed to slavery, nineteenth century writers were mindful of the presence of black people. More important, they addressed … their views on that difficult matter.26’

While ‘white’ people were the ones becoming writers and making use of the privileges bestowed on them by society (the only black writers at the time were authors of slave narratives, and many works were discredited until the latter part of the twentieth century), the black population was one if their most prominent topics. The substance of the work produced revolved around a black presence (think of the run away slave, Jim in Huck Finn), even though it was written by white people who were more often than not male. In addition to this, the connection between whiteness and blackness is of great importance. When it was in the process of getting acclimated with dominance in society, ‘whiteness’ was defined subconsciously by its instigators as being in direct opposition to ‘blackness’.

Another feature of whiteness is the denial which comes with it. Whites can too easily see themselves as unracialised and completely untouched by race. We are living through a paradox where ‘white’ people can ‘not have’ race, but can still be racists. Williams highlights the fact that ‘whiteness as ‘race’ is almost never implicated27’ as being a central frustration of the race issue. The fact that whiteness is unnamed, suppressed, beyond the realm of race allows white people to come to the conclusion that race lives ‘over there’.28 Tied up in this is also a policy of politeness. As Williams notes, ‘race matters are resented and repressed in much the same way as matters of sex and scandal: the subject is considered a rude and transgressive one…29’

Moreover, for many of the women interviewed by Ruth Frankenberg for her study White Women, Race Matters, colour-blindness constitutes the polite language of race.30 Frankenberg’s later observation that ‘colour-evasion actually involves a selective engagement with difference, rather than no engagement at all31’ is probably an accurate critique of the philosophy of colour-blindness as it stands at the present time.

I would argue that this is currently so because of the issue of whiteness itself. ‘White’ people in the United States often convince themselves that the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s corrected the issue of inequality within US society. Furthermore, they convince themselves that the legislation that came out of the civil rights movement was a sufficient measure to correct the issues raised during that period. Various government statistics suggest that this is most definitely not the case (the number of African Americans in jail is disproportionate to the number of African Americans living in the United States, for example), but ‘white’ people fail to recognise such facts, unless it suits them to. It is not my intention, here, to be monocausal about why so many African Americans are behind bars, but the belief of the white people that since the transformation in US society, everything is now ‘alright’ is clearly a contributing factor to many misgivings such as this.

Frankenberg’s preference for the term ‘colour-evasiveness’ in place of colour-blindness is telling. Her desire to use the former is driven partly out of not wanting to place too much emphasis on a physiological disability (this is, after all, a sociological and a psychological problem), but also because some issues do not remain completely unseen32; they are often identified, but are strategically evaded. Within the realm of whiteness, this is done for a plethora of reasons, but the two most common reasons are the preservation of the dominance of ‘white’ people, and the aim of maintaining politeness. The implication of this is a dishonest ‘living out’ of a colour-blind paradigm, and the existence of a neo-racist ideology. Many of the things are seen but are not recognised as part of the same issue: minority suffering.

So where does all this leave whiteness and colour-blindness?

The tragic reproduction of whiteness is, in the eyes of Roediger, due to the privileges that come with it.33 This is understandable because the privileges enable power, but, as detailed by many academics (most forcefully Frankenberg), power itself, and where it rests and who has it, is often an evaded subject in public discourse, and especially when not spoken of in terms of race:

‘… for some women, descriptions of people of colo[u]r that evaded naming race (and therefore power) differences formed what one might describe as a ‘polite’ or ‘public’ language of race that contrasted with other private languages.34’

The antidote to such privileges, Roediger suggests, is an explicit and visible campaign for expanded affirmative action.35 The success of such a campaign would revolve around whether or not it got people talking openly, in public, about the issue of race. As Morrison summarises, ‘ignoring the issue of race is understood to be a graceful, even generous, liberal gesture.36’ This, of course, simply cannot be the case when so many sociological problems in the United States have the issue of race as a central factor. Many problems are still caused by racism, but the problem now is that racism, like whiteness, is not a salient feature of US society. The fact that the racism is, at times, made invisible by colour-blindness does not make it any less hurtful or wrong. Indeed, it probably makes it harder to remove. Institutionalised racism, which is due in large part to the manifestation of whiteness within the American system, causes minority groups of various ethnicities (not just African Americans) much trouble on a daily basis. The overwhelming majority of American people are unaware of such problems because the system disproportionately benefits them, allowing them to believe that they, along with numerous institutions, are colour-blind, when in actual fact they are causing much hurt and not realising it.

Colour-blindness, where-by people genuinely are treated equally by the ‘content of their character’ not only by individuals but by systems as well, remains a very real hope for the United States. A colour-blind paradigm could flourish in the US in the not too distant future, but before that can happen whiteness first has to be understood by those whom it unevenly benefits, then it has to be systematically dismantled. Roediger has observed that ‘whiteness is now a particularly brittle and fragile form of social identity and … it can be fought.37’ The first step to fighting off the privileges of whiteness in order to adopt a colour-blind philosophy is to dispel the myth that racism is located in colour consciousness and that racism is absent from colour-blindness38. The reverse is probably closer to the truth at the present time, yet this remains the hope for one day in the distant future. For now, the goal for the short term should be the dismantling of whiteness after a process of reconceptualising ‘race’ to include notions of whiteness and to realise that ‘white’ people are, in fact, racialised. After that, the goal for the long term -- a United States which is, in all truth, a colour-blind nation -- will be achievable.

Until then, whiteness will continue to make colour-blindness a myth as it stands today. As Omi notes, ‘many white believe that the goals of the civil rights movement have been achieved, that we are a colour-blind society.39’ This belief, like whiteness itself, is a false and dangerous myth.


Bibliography

Allen, Theodore W. The Invention of the White Race: Volume One: Racial Oppression and Social Control. London: Verso. 1994.

Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York U.P. 2001.

Fossett, Judith Jackson and Jeffrey A. Tucker. Ed. Race Consciousness: African-American Studies for the new Century. New York: New York U.P. 1997.

Frankenberg, Ruth. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. London: Routledge. 1993.

Jay, Gregory. “Who Invented White People? A Talk on the Occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1998.” Whiteness Studies: Deconstructing (the) Race. Jan 15, 1998. Mar 24, 2008.

Lewis, Amanda E. “”What Group?” Studying Whites and Whiteness in an Era of “Colour-Blindness”.” Sociological Theory. 22:4. (December 2004): p 623 - 646.

Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard U.P. 1992.

Rasmussen, Birgit Brander, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica and Matt Wray. Ed. The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness. London: Duke U.P. 2001.

Reason, Robert D. and Nancy J. Evans. “The Complicated Realities of Whiteness: From Color Blind to Racially Cognizant.” New Directions for Student Services. 120. (Winter 2007): p 67 - 74.

Roediger, David. Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics, and Working Class History. London: Verso. 1994.

Williams, Patricia J. Seeing a Colour-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race. London: Virago. 1997.

Yancy, George. Ed. What White Looks Like: African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. London: Routledge. 2004.


1 Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York : New York U.P. 2001. p 75 - 78

2 Winant, Howard. “White Racial Projects.” The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness. Ed. Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica and Matt Wray. London: Duke U.P., 2001. p 103

3 Reason, Robert D. and Nancy J. Evans. “The Complicated Realities of Whiteness: From Colour Blind to Racially Cognizant.” New Directions for Student Services. 120. (Winter 2007): p 68

4 Williams, Patricia J. Seeing a Colour-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race. London: Virago. p 5

5 Roediger, David. Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics and Working Class History. London: Verso. p 12

6 Roediger, David, p 9

7 Lewis, Amanda E. “”What Group?” Studying Whites and Whiteness in the Era of “Colour-Blindness”.” Sociological Theory. 22:4 (December 2004): p 625

8 Headley, Clevis. “Delegitimizing the Normativity of “Whiteness”.” What White Looks Like: African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. Ed. George Yancy. London: Routledge. 2004. p 96

9 Oliver, Kelly, as quoted by Clevis Headley, p 96

10 Roediger, David, p 13

11 Ibid.

12 Yancy, George. “Fragments of a Social Ontology of Whiteness.” In George Yancy, p 1

13 Ibid. p 4

14 Delgado, Richard et al., p 75

15 Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard U.P. 1992. p 47

16 For a detailed account of how the Irish became white in the United States, see Ignatiev, Noel. How The Irish Became White. London: Routledge. 1995.

17 Jay Gregory. “Who Invented White People?”

18 Morrison, Toni, p 47

19 Roediger, David, p 13

20 Conley, Dalton. “Universal Freckle, or How I Learned to be White.” in Birgit Brander Rasmussen et al., p 28

21 Yancy, George. “Fragments of a Social ontology of Whiteness.” In George Yancy, p 7

22 Rasmussen, Birgit Brander et al. p 11

23 Ware, Vron. “Perfidious Albion: Whiteness and the International Imagination.” in Birgit Brander Rasmussen et al., p 210

24 Morrison, Toni, p 14

25 Morrison, Toni, p 44

26 Ibid. p 49 - 50

27 Williams, Patricia J., p 4

28 Williams, Patricia J. p 5

29 Ibid. p 6

30 Frankenberg, Ruth. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. London: Routledge. 1993. p 142

31 Ibid. p 142-3

32 Frankenberg, Ruth, p 268 n.31

33 Roediger, David, p 17

34 Frankenberg, Ruth, p 149-150

35 Roediger, David, p 17

36 Morrison, Toni, p 9-10

37 Roediger, David, p 12

38 Omi, Michael. “(E)racism: Emerging Practices of Antiracist Organisations.” in Birgit Brander Rasmussen et al., p 267

39 Ibid., p 268

Abraham Lincoln’s Speeches: Preserving the Union

Throughout his political career, Abraham Lincoln was forced to make saving the Union his top priority. For three years before the Confederacy fired at Fort Sumter, Lincoln spoke with the ultimate goal of preserving of the Union. He did so in the face of southern hostility over the divisive issue of slavery. In his speeches, five concepts stand out as being prominent. These are: heroic images of past American individuals and American moments; the notion of an impending irrepressible conflict; Government of the people, by the people, for the people; religious overtones, specifically biblical imagery; and human rights. It is my intention to analyse these in relation to the central Northern goal of winning the Civil War and keeping the Union intact.

As the Union triumphed in 1865, slavery had become the critical theme of the war. As the North defeated the South the institution of slavery was destroyed, but this had not been the goal in early 1861. In his first inaugural speech upon assuming the Presidency, Abraham Lincoln promised the southern states who were preparing to secede that he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it already exists.1” This is explicit, and definitive. The clarity and simplicity of his language exemplifies what he always wanted to do: speak to average Americans as well as to politicians2. After all, saving the Union would require the will power and strength of almost every man. But President Lincoln’s disregard for the rights of slaves to be free is clear, and needs no further clarification. The message of the above sentence is polarised from the Emancipation Proclamation, and the issue of human rights. Principles of humanity, however, would soon enough become a hallmark of Lincoln’s critical orations.

In the same speech, Lincoln vows to enforce the controversial fugitive slave law, promising they “shall be delivered3”. But what Lincoln says in his first inaugural address does not necessarily contradict what he had stated in previous orations. In 1858, for example, Lincoln stressed (in what many consider to be his most important speech4) that he believed “this government cannot endure ... half slave and half free.5” It would be wrong to interpret what Lincoln said when assuming the Presidency as him trying to make the Union work ‘as half and half’; he spoke as he did only with a short term view. A most likely explanation for the sentiments he expressed in his inaugural address of 1861 is that Lincoln was trying to keep the South content, for a short while longer at least. To substantiate this assumption, I draw you attention to what he reminds his listeners at the end of his first inaugural address that “nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.6” Lincoln’s attempt to buy the country and himself some time ultimately failed: the shots were fired at Fort Sumter within a month. Indeed, principles of humanity -- the first prominent concept of his speeches -- were soon to become the tools of his public speaking. He took to using them whenever possible to further aid the preservation of the Union and the speedy close of the war he so badly desired.

This in itself is an important point to clarify. The manipulation of humane principles was a means to preserving the status of the Union. This is not the same as what the likes of William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass were pushing for at the time; advocates of abolitionism stressed that the institution of slavery should be wiped out at any cost. If faced with the option of saving the Union but keeping slavery, it is not too bold to assume Lincoln would have taken this choice. In a letter to Horace Greeley, Lincoln states:

“If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them ... If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.7”

But if Garrison had the chance to liberate the slaves at the cost of the Union, he almost certainly would have done so.

Having said that, Lincoln’s use of humane principles bordered on abolitionism at times. He was never able to fully embrace the abolitionists, however, because of the extremist tag which had been attached to them by mainstream commentators during the 19th century. Implicitly, though, it is clear that Lincoln’s heart was always in the right place. In 1858, he makes it clear at the beginning of his “House Divided” speech that there can be no compromise between good and evil. Having half the nation allowing the institution of slavery and half the nation outlawing it suggests a middle ground between right and wrong8. Indeed, Lincoln’s friend and law partner William H. Herndon praised Lincoln for being morally courageous, but considered him politically incorrect.

Later in his speaking career, human rights became more explicit in Lincoln’s orations. On August 18 and 22, 1864 (after the Emancipation Proclamation), Lincoln spoke to two Ohio regiments at the White House. When speaking to the sixty-fourth Ohio Regiment on the 18th, he stated:

“We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one.9”

The rights of men, though not an initial cause of the war, were by this point a key principle for Lincoln in justifying the actions of the Union army. His words are free of race, colour, and religion, and suggest that the human rights of all citizens living south of Canada and north of Mexico are only going to be enshrined if the Confederate army is defeated.

The United States army of today fights under a flag which supposedly embodies the basic principles of humanity, and the self-evident truth that all men are created equal. Abraham Lincoln was, with the words he used, the first Commander-in-chief to supervise an American army which explicitly fought for these rights.

Another concept of public speaking which was later used by Lincoln in conjunction with human rights was that of religion, specifically religious imagery and biblical imagery. President Lincoln was not the first to use this in public speaking10, but he is today regarded as one of the best exponents of it thanks to the way he applied it to the Civil War.

The philosophy behind this technique is based upon God and Christianity both being undisputable powers. It is critical for Lincoln to speak as if God is on his side in this dispute because that makes Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy indisputably wrong. With the polarised opposite of God being the Devil, the Confederacy is cast in an evil light, as if they are fighting in the name of Satan. So not only are the Union troops going to be fighting for human rights, but they are now God’s Christian warriors as well.

To illustrate this, it is important to consider how Lincoln asserts the power of God. At the beginning of a response to an unexpected serenade outside the White House, three days after Independence Day in 1863, he starts: “I do most sincerely thank Almighty God for the occasion on which you have called.11” Notice how he doesn’t just thank God, but he thanks Almighty God. This is significant because it highlights the undisputable power in God, and which only God has. By doing this, he not only puts himself in line with Christianity, but with the unquestionable power of God also.

The technique of including religious overtones also draws a connection to the concept of America’s Manifest Destiny. It is widely accepted that Lincoln was a great believer in America’s God given right to spread democracy and American values across the planet12. For Manifest Destiny as a concept to work, it has to be seen to be working in the United States. If the Union could not crush the Confederate States, then America’s God given right to expand itself across the continent of North America would be severely undermined.

Similarly, the role of religion in the destiny of the United States is a crucial factor in Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg. Its importance is underscored by the fact that the religious element of the speech came right before the line by which everybody recalls the speech for: “... this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ...13” The notion of a new, more free America is rooted by President Lincoln in a Christian power structure -- under the watchful eye of God. By doing this, he also guards against a completely new revolution; what the Union troops are fighting for in the Civil War is a new and unified America, but not one which is completely unrecognisable from the America which was founded by the authors of the Declaration of Independence.

As would be expected, though, Lincoln’s use of religious overtones stretches back before 1861. His address to the House in 1848 regarding the war with Mexico is one of Lincoln’s earliest speeches of note, and about two thirds of the way through he suggests President Polk “feels the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to heaven against him.14” This is a strong religious simile which he employs here, portraying the President to be just as bad as Cain. This is too strong for him to speak plainly, so he does it through comparing the blood of his soldiers to the blood of Abel. When Abraham Lincoln eventually became President some thirteen years later, he will have almost certainly been guided by the mistakes President Polk made as Commander-in-Chief during the war with Mexico.

Ten years later, and no longer a simple Congressman, Lincoln gave his talk in Springfield, Illinois, which is referred to today as his “House Divided” speech: it is named so because early in the introduction Lincoln included the line “a house divided against itself cannot stand.15” To open such a forthright and aggressive oration by paraphrasing what Jesus had said in the New Testament was political dynamite. This line was made all the more significant because of the explosive political context in which it was delivered. As early as 1858, the stench of secession from Southern states was strong. The geography of Illinois made the race for this particular Senate seat (a race between Lincoln of the G.O.P. and Stephen A. Douglas of the Democrats) even more important than it usually would have been. His remarks were inevitably characterised by some to be too far in advance of the times in which they were uttered16, but the tone had been set.

The religious paraphrasing led to Lincoln prophesising agitations which would not cease until a crisis had been reached and passed. In going on to practically rule out a peaceful resolution to the issue of slavery, he was accused of proposing a war. But Lincoln was far form being a war monger; he argued it was a prediction only, though he said nothing during his campaign to suggest a peaceful resolution could be reached.

What Lincoln describes in detail in his “House Divided” speech is the notion of a forthcoming irrepressible conflict. This is the third concept which helped Abraham Lincoln preserve the Union against Southern hostilities. Abraham Lincoln did not devise the term, but along with political ally William H. Seward, he brought it to the attention of the political mainstream.

The concept is one of agitated fear: his “House Divided” speech is menacing and one packed with perils and dangers. The extremist reading of it casts the oration as a bloody manifesto -- a declaration of war against the institution of slavery, and thus the South17. But taken in its broadest sense, Lincoln’s speech is merely preparatory in nature. As Johannsen phrases it, Lincoln employed his best doomsday rhetoric18, but he did so not simply to scare Illinoisans into voting for him, but as an honest warning that trouble was waiting further on down the road.

It is understood that Lincoln publicly saw the 1858 race for the Senate as the irrepressible conflict, but one wonders, when reading the closing statements of the speech, whether he honestly foresaw an actual war in the all-too-near future. The words “resistance,” “battle,” “enemy,” “brave,” and “victory” work in conjunction with phrases such as “we stand firm,” “the result is not doubtful” , and “we shall not fail” to form the metaphor of an ideological war at the very least. In my opinion the words and phrases are all too outspoken to mean just that. Lincoln could see the battles and the enemy all too clearly.

This, it is important to remember, is 1858. Fort Sumter was three years away. Being able to envisage the ever-approaching conflict at such an early stage required great insight into the American psyche, and that Lincoln undoubtedly possessed. It was not surprising to many in the North when the Confederacy fired first, but it was surprising to Abraham Lincoln least of all. He had seen this for at least three years. And he had been planning how to save the Union for that length of time as well. We can understand the notion of the irrepressible conflict as almost being a self-warning for Lincoln himself to prepare for the worst, should it occur.

The element of irrepressibility of the impending conflict is drawn from the fact that both sides are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. When these sides collide, no compromise can possibly suffice as a legitimate and suitable conclusion for all. President Lincoln justifies the use of the war power by the executive at the end of his war address to Congress on Independence Day, 1861, he states that: “no compromise by public servants could, in this case, be a cure.19” In other words, this conflict was always going to happen, so he is not going to do anything but let it happen and do his utmost to win it.

The “House Divided” speech of Abraham Lincoln is unique with respect to his other prominent orations because it is completely void of heroic images of past Americans. Equally, there is no mention of great American moments from history. Like the inclusion of religious imagery, this concept was widely used at the time, as it still is today. By dropping into a speech the names of great American heroes from the past, a speaker may hope to justify a vast array of ideas, policies and actions.

The thinking behind this is that by simply mentioning a great American of a by-gone era, or perhaps one of the great American documents (the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence etc.), then the ‘righteousness’ of it will be transferred to the new idea which the speaker is illustrating. What Abraham Lincoln was constantly promoting was the saviour of the union from (as he saw it) utter destruction and complete annihilation. As previously mentioned in this essay, President Lincoln gave a few informal remarks upon receiving a serenade, some four months before he delivered the Gettysburg Address. When he did so, he manipulated this opportunity to clearly polarise the Confederacy from the Declaration of Independence, placing them at opposite end of the spectrum:

“... and now, on this last Fourth of July just passed, when we have a gigantic Rebellion, at the bottom of which is an effort to overthrow the principle that all men are created equal, we have the surrender of a most powerful position and army ...20”

Lincoln motivates the crowd into supporting the war by drawing upon the recent capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, but at the same time portrays his troops as having successfully defended, at the absolute least, the opening line of the 1776 document: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

Yet it is in President Lincoln’s war address to Congress where these references become so critical. In many respects, the President needs the backing of Congress more than he needs the backing of the people to win a war; it is, after all, Congress who finance it and it is they who must organise the budget for the war. Roughly three quarters of the way through his crucial address, Lincoln implies the United States has the best government on the planet. “The free institutions we enjoy have developed the powers and improved the condition of our whole people,” he insists, “beyond any example in the world.21” One of only a few ways he can possibly substantiate such a bold claim is by following it with a name and situation: the name of a great American, carrying out a courageous act. The Confederacy’s new Declaration of Independence, he says, unlike the “good old one, penned by Jefferson ... omit[s] the words “all men are created equal.”22” By questioning why this is so, he tries to convey what has gone before as being practically perfect -- it cannot be improved upon, and any attempt to make it better will only have a reverse affect. Furthermore, by insisting the Union has the best democracy in the world, he is suggesting that there will never be another nation better positioned to crush the Confederate uprising.

Further on in the speech, the President uses a similar sentence structure to convey a similar meaning:

“in the preamble of [a temporary national constitution], unlike our good old one, signed by Washington, they omit "We, the people," and substitute "We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States." Why?23”

The most noticeable aspect of this section of the speech is the repartition. Not only does Lincoln repeat the same words, but there is grammatical parallelism present, also. These were common traits in the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, and he uses them here to draw attention to the heroes of years gone by24. Moreover, in his inaugural speech of 1861, Lincoln emphasises the role of the Constitution of the United States. No less than 34 times does he refer directly to it, or to something as being “constitutional”. This statistic emphasises Lincoln’s repartition, as well as his willingness to rely upon the American Constitution to aid in saving the Union.

But the belief in the power of the policies advocated by the Constitution is not something Lincoln developed overnight. In his speech in the House about the war with Mexico (a speech of 1848), he insisted President Polk should assume the role of the first President, George Washington: “Let him remember he sits where Washington sat, and so remembering, let him answer, as Washington would answer.25” Again we have repartition of the sentence structure, but in this instance, Lincoln is searching for honesty on the part of President Polk, whom he suspects to be trying to con himself as well as the House and the Senate and the American people. Even today, some Americans hold George Washington to be the purist of Presidents, simply because he was the first to assume the high role. It is this which Lincoln takes for granted, and thus plays upon with his words.

Many of the great Americans from by-gone years whom Lincoln references helped establish what Lincoln coined to by “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Whilst this is the last thing President Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, the point at which the speech itself occurred in the war is significant. 1863 was the middle of the war, two years into what would be the United States most bloody conflict until their entry into World War II in 1941. Both sides expected a quick victory, so after two years of hard-fought battles and many lives lost on both sides, Abraham Lincoln’s orations had to be of the highest order to sustain the war effort.

The last line of the Gettysburg Address is one of strong democratic values, but to better understand it one should also take into consideration a line from his Inaugural Address of 1861:

“[Faithfully executing all the laws] I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people [emphasis mine], shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner, direct the contrary.26”

What Lincoln stresses here are the rights of the average American citizen. It is clear why Lincoln was, according to Herndon, so eager to communicate his messages to the masses. What the last line of the Gettysburg Address and the above quote show is willingness on Lincoln’s part to accentuate that he is President because the majority of the American electorate wanted him to be. They expressively chose him to lead the country, and he is happy to govern for them, and on their terms.

It is also noticeable that Lincoln does not incorporate a religious element to governing the Union. Lincoln’s liking for religious instruction cannot be discarded, even when an American is casting his vote, but the American must remember that the President who is elected will not be governing God, but the people at the ballot box.

Lincoln gave the Union army something to fight for when he said “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. It is a catchy phrase, with a ring to it. It is true that Lincoln was already waging a war in the name of Christianity and in the name of democracy, but what he effectively did at Gettysburg was put a slogan to it. The Northern Americans already knew their troops were fighting for democracy, but now they had a catchphrase to remember it by. And in that last line, Lincoln sold the war to the people who, after hearing of thousands killed on the battlefields, often with little gain, must have felt their appetite for warfare fading away. Lincoln breathed new life into the war effort, and helped boost the morale of the Northern Americans citizens and the Union army.

In conclusion, the many facets of war are often played out linguistically. In his speeches, Abraham Lincoln spoke plainly of war in a variety of ways, ranging from an irrepressible conflict which was heading straight for the heart of American democracy, to something which could ultimately be a crusade for good in the world.

The shifting emphasis of the American Civil War can be traced in his orations. In 1861, he spoke solely of saving the Union. By 1865, the emancipation of the slaves in the Confederate states became the easiest way to achieve this. As a result, Lincoln spoke openly of humanity. The Emancipation Proclamation, and the way he sold it to the American people in conjunction with other ‘American’ principles, became the great preserver of the Union.

When pushed, to defend her beliefs and her principles, the United States came up fighting, and in the process of fighting created a few more along the way.


Bibliography

Barker, Alan. The Civil War in America. London: A. & C. Black Ltd. 1961.

Basler, Roy P. “Abraham Lincoln and Rhetoric”. American Literature. 11:2 (May 1939): p 167 – 182.

Brice, Marshall M. “Lincoln and Rhetoric”. College Composition and Communication. 17:1 (February 1966): p 12 – 14.

Dawes, James. The Language of War: Literature and Culture in the United States from the Civil War through World War II. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press. 2002.

“History of the United States Republican Party.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Republican_Party Accessed December 12 2007.

Johannsen, Robert W. Lincoln, the South and Slavery: The Political Dimension. Baton Rouge, L.A: Louisiana University Press. 1991.

Lincoln, Abraham. “First inaugural Address.” Abraham Lincoln Online. Accessed December 12 2007.

Lincoln, Abraham. “House Divided.” Abraham Lincoln Online. Accessed December 12, 2007.

Lincoln, Abraham. “Gettysburg Address.” Abraham Lincoln Online. Accessed December 12 2007.

Lincoln, Abraham. “Response to a Serenade.” Abraham Lincoln Online. Accessed December 12 2007.

Lincoln, Abraham. “Speech to Ohio Regiments.” Abraham Lincoln Online. Accessed December 12 2007.

Lincoln, Abraham. “War Address.” Abraham Lincoln Online. Accessed December 12 2007.

Manifest Destiny.” Wikipedia. Accessed December 12 2007.

Mays, Peter. “The War with Mexico.” Animated Atlas. Accessed December 12 2007.

Munton, Michelle. “Rhetoric and the Spanish-American War”. American Studies Today. 16. (September 2007): p 03 – 13.

Quarles, Benjamin. Lincoln and the Negro. New York: Oxford University Press. 1962.


1 Lincoln, Abraham. First Inaugural Address. Washington, D.C.

2 William H. Herndon, as quoted by Basler, Roy P. “Abraham Lincoln’s Rhetoric.” American Literature. 11:2. (May 1939):p 167

3 Lincoln, Abraham. First Inaugural Address. Washington, D.C.

4 Johannsen is just one of several historians who place Lincoln’s ‘House Divided’ speech as more important than the Gettysburg Address

5 Lincoln, Abraham. House Divided. Springfield, Illinois

6 Lincoln, Abraham. First Inaugural Address. Washington, D.C.

7 Quoted in Basler, Roy P. “Abraham Lincoln’s Rhetoric.” American Literature. 11:2. (May 1939):p 168

8 Johannsen, Robert W. Lincoln, the South and Slavery: The Political Dimension. Baton Rouge, L.A.: Louisiana University Press, 1991. Page 92

9 Lincoln, Abraham. Speeches to Ohio Regiments. Washington, D.C.

10 For at least the last one hundred years previous, the Bible was used to justify slavery just as much as it was used to denounce it

11 Lincoln, Abraham. Response to a Serenade. Washington, D.C.

12 I make this assumption based upon the fact that Wikipedia, for what it is worth, quotes Lincoln as saying the United States is the “last, best hope of Earth”.

13 Lincoln, Abraham. Gettysburg Address. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

14 Lincoln, Abraham. The War with Mexico. House of Representatives.

15 Lincoln, Abraham. House Divided Speech. Springfield, Illinois.

16 See Johannse, Robert W. Lincoln, the South and Slavery: The Political Dimension. Baton Rouge, L.A.: Louisiana University Press, 1991. Page 74

17 Johannsen, Robert W. Lincoln, the South and Slavery: The Political Dimension. Baton Rouge, L.A.: Louisiana University Press, 1991. Page 70

18 Ibid, Page 89

19 Lincoln, Abraham. War Address. Congress.

20 Lincoln, Abraham. Response to a Serenade. Washington, D.C.

21 Lincoln, Abraham. War Address. Congress.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Basler, Roy P. “Abraham Lincoln’s Rhetoric.” American Literature. 11:2. (May 1939):p 167

25 Lincoln, Abraham. The War with Mexico. House of Representatives.

26 Lincoln, Abraham. First Inaugural Address. Washington, D.C.