The Lincoln Persuasion

About this book

In his last work, J. David Greenstone provides an important new analysis of American liberalism and of Lincoln's unique contribution to the nation's political life. Greenstone addresses Louis Hartz's well-known claim that a tradition of liberal consensus has characterized American political life from the time of the founders. Although he acknowledges the force of Hartz's thesis, Greenstone nevertheless finds it inadequate for explaining prominent instances of American political discord, most notably the Civil War. Greenstone argues instead for the existence of a fundamental bipolarity in American liberalism between what he calls "humanist liberalism" and "reform liberalism." The two traditions, equally liberal, share beliefs in three fundamental liberal tenets - individual rights, private property, and government by consent - but they differ sharply on other, still liberal, beliefs. Humanist liberals, such as Thomas Jefferson and the Jacksonians, emphasized the satisfying of individual preferences; by contrast, reform liberals concentrated on fostering individual human development. Greenstone traces the development of this bipolarity from the political thought of the founding generation through that of the Jacksonians and finally to Lincoln. In the antebellum years, the manifest inability of either political tradition alone to resolve the growing dispute over slavery led Lincoln to the development of a new political outlook that was a synthesis of the two liberal traditions. Greenstone suggests that this synthesis, the Lincoln "persuasion," amounted to a new founding of the nation.