Something I’ve been wanting to ask conservatives since seeing Steven Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln’ the other day. If you had been around for the January 1865 debate in the House of Representatives over the 13th amendment to the constitution—and had adhered to the prevailing conservative positions of the time—would you have identified with the views of Thaddeus Stevens or George Pendleton? Just asking.
A question for Democrats: if you had been around in 1865, and adhered to the prevailing Democratic positions of the time, would you have identified with the views of Thaddeus Stevens or George Pendleton? Reminder:
• The 13th Amendment to abolish slavery was voted for by 100% of the Republicans in congress and by 23% of the Democrats in congress.
• Not one Democrat either in the House or the Senate voted for the 14th amendment declaring that former slaves were full citizens of the state in which they lived and were therefore entitled to all the rights and privileges of any other citizen in that state.
• Not a single one of the 56 Democrats in Congress voted for the 15th amendment that granted explicit voting rights to black Americans.
And a lot more here:
http://frederickdouglassrepublican.com/did-you-know/
Well, you might say that Democrats back then were not the same as Democrats today. But then, can’t the same be said for “conservatives”? (I’m not even sure the term was in use.) I guess that’s the kind of confusion that arises from asking ahistorical, anachronistic, and polemical questions…
Marty, you are absolutely right that, as a Democrat, I would say that the Democrats back then were not the same as they are today. Likewise the Republicans. If I had been me in 1865, I would have been a Republican. As for “conservative” and what it meant or did not mean back then, let me modify the question and ask if you (“you” being addressed to all those on the right reading this) had been on the right in 1865 – i.e. situated yourself on the same place on the political spectrum as you do today –, where would you have come down in the Stevens vs. Pendleton debate? On the question being “ahistorical [and] anachronistic”, well, perhaps, but I still pose the question. As for being polemical, that’s possible. But, as you know well, polemicizing can be fun sometimes
Excuse me, Arun, but the question is absurd. There is probably not a single issue that was alive in 1865 that is alive today. The absurdity of the question is revealed by asking this: If Stevens or Pendleton (or Lincoln, for that matter) were alive today, what would they think of legal abortion subsidized by the state? Probably not one person in the whole damn Congress in 1865 would regard it as anything but sin from hell. So were they all “conservatives”? What about federal income taxes? The 16th Amendment, which empowered the federal government to collect income taxes, wasn’t ratified until 1913. Hard to imagine that anyone in 1865 would have favored it, especially at today’s rates. So were they all “conservatives”? Do you begin to see my point? Anachronistic and ahistorical questions are totally useless. So if you are insinuating that to be a conservative today is, by some weird twist, to be someone who would have condoned slavery in 1865, your blogging license should be revoked. And if that’s what you were thinking during the two hours you watched “Lincoln,” then go back and see it again, as the director intended that you see it.
Revoke my blogging license?! Ouch! That’s severe! I was not necessarily insinuating anything about today’s conservatives supporting slavery if they’d been around in 1865. Like I said, I was just asking the question, inspired as it was by the film and its depiction of the debate in the House over the 13th amendment – we’re reading and thinking a lot these days about the deeply divided House, so making parallels between then and now are inevitable, however anachronistic and perhaps ahistorical – and the deep division between what were manifestly the left, center, and right in those days. Lincoln himself could have probably been characterized as a centrist or moderate conservative in his day – a RINO in present-day parlance –, Stevens a radical (on the left), Pendleton out there on the right. And given that many conservatives nowadays – including some who comment on this blog (though not you) — do want to turn the clock back to some period before the New Deal in terms of social legislation, and fetishize the US constitution – an orginalist interpretation of it, such as was supposedly conceived by the (slave-owning) Founding Fathers –, well, I just want to know where they think they would have come down in the 13th amendment House debate, that’s all. It’s the kind of off-the-cuff, somewhat polemical question one gets to ask on a blog, just for sport. So, please, don’t revoke my license…
BTW, if you were to ask me: hey, Arun, given your left-leaning politics, what would your position have been on, say, the Chinese revolution and Mao Tse-tung (one of the greatest mass murdering criminals in history) back in the 50s or 60s, I would readily admit to having supported it at the time, and then later admitting the error of my ways. In fact, I will readily admit to having been a youthful Maoist. I was in phase with my time. Leftists adhered to all sorts of stupid views in the past, and many will admit to that. Rightists likewise. But how many will admit they were wrong?
Again, confused. One of the things the movie doesn’t make clear is that abolition was itself a Bible-driven cause, the source of the abolitionist movement was religious, and when the South lost the war, the predominant interpretation was that it had violated the ordinances of God by indulging the sin of slavery. Anti-abortion today and abolition then derive from a similar religious sensibility. So was Bible-driven abolition a “conservative” cause or a “radical” cause? And wasn’t succession itself–leaving the Union forged by the Founding Fathers–a radical act? Wasn’t it Lincoln’s mission to conserve the Union? (Yes, conserve.) Actually, there are no answers to these questions. Trying to force historical figures into contemporary boxes is a silly game, and it really detracts from proper historical understanding.
The issue you raise in your last paragraph is entirely disconnected from the question you tried to pose in the post.
I raise these objections not as a contemporary conservative, but as a practicing historian. Consider this a hygienic measure to prevent the abuse of history (and historical analogies) for present purposes. Both the right and the left are susceptible to it.
I am well aware that abolitionism was driven by religious considerations (and that may be seen, BTW, in Steven Spielberg’s previous film on the subject, ‘Amistad’). But slavery was likewise justified in religious terms (as were Jim Crow and Apartheid in South Africa). http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/BiblicalStudies/OldTestamentHebrewBible/?view=usa&ci=9780195142792 As we know, religion has been used to justify everything and its opposite. On abolitionism and anti-abortion today deriving from a similar religious sensibility, I think you may be engaging in some anachronistic or ahistorical thinking here yourself. Mainline Protestant churches – plus black churches and Catholic groups (not to mention synagogues) – have always been a major force in American liberal-left movements and causes. Every liberal-left demonstration I have ever participated in in America has had large contingents from the churches. During my politically engaged years in New York City one of the major venues of liberal-left events was Riverside Church (American Baptist and UCC). In Washington it was All Souls Church (Unitarian). One can hardly conceive of liberal-leftism in the US without the religious component. And the religious people on this side of the political spectrum are overwhelmingly pro-choice on abortion. And it goes without saying that they would proudly recognize Thaddeus Stevens as one of their own (as for how Southern Baptists and conservative evangelicals would view Stevens, I suppose one would have to ask them).
As for your objection as a practicing historian to my question, the point is well taken. But I don’t think my question is any more ahistorical or illegitimate than engaging in counterfactual history, about which serious books have been written e.g. http://www.uchronia.net/bib.cgi/label.html?id=squiifitha and http://books.google.com/books/about/Plausible_Worlds.html?id=1Td9uxJmLyEC Counterfactual history is sort of irrelevant and neither here nor there, but is still a fun way to waste time. And my question is a far less waste of time, as it only took me a couple of minutes to write it…