A lesson learned from OUR ANCIENT FAITH: LINCOLN, DEMOCRACY, AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT, by Alan Guelzo

 Humility is needed for a successful democracy. 

One subject who will undoubtedly come up repeatedly over the course of my blog is Abraham Lincoln, and I already took a lesson away from him in a previous entry (when Michael Burlingame’s excellent Lincoln biography examined his fairly humble origins). I partly will always return to Lincoln because he will forever be my favorite president (and thus I tend to snap up every book about him I can find), but also because he was a unique American leader in our history who is still admired on a global scale. Author Allen Guelzo apparently shares my fascination with Lincoln and has written numerous studies about his presidency—his most recent Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment is a relatively fast-paced read (clocking in at under 200 pages), and it specifically focuses on Lincoln’s various political and economic theories that have often received less attention compared to the titanic Civil War-related issues that Lincoln took the lead on. One terrific lesson that we can take away from Guelzo’s latest Lincoln study is the importance of humility, in acknowledging one’s own failures and blind spots and always attempting to improve upon them. 

Lincoln was nothing if not a true believer in the destiny of the United States and the greatness of American democracy, and that was why he was willing to fight a war before he would allow that government to be torn apart by secessionists. Lincoln was born into an America where rich white men largely had the only say in the American government, and he watched over the course of his lifetime as gradually a more ribald, democratic society developed where all white men could vote and debate American politics. One of the fun focuses of Guelzo’s book is his theory on how Lincoln might have viewed the world of modern American economics. Lincoln loved the industrial revolution, the free marketplace, and the American dream that any ordinary person could rise to greatness through their own hard work—yet he also dreamed of an America dominated by small business and the ordinary worker, and he might have been greatly uncomfortable with the massive corporations and billionaire titans who dominate the world today. 

Of course, the great struggle of Lincoln’s lifetime was in how to apply America’s democratic principles across the color line, and Guelzo frankly acknowledges the flaws and limited worldview of a man who was born and raised in racist states, and who was willing to spout racist philosophies if it meant winning elections in those areas. In a way, Guelzo argues that deep flaw in Lincoln only makes the ultimate triumphs of his better angels that much more stunning—Lincoln so deeply believed in American democracy and in giving every ordinary man an opportunity to succeed, that he was willing to become a passionate fighter for emancipation and the rights of African-Americans even over his own personal prejudices. 

In all my studies of Lincoln, one trait of his that Guelzo emphasizes is Lincoln’s humility, a trait that is sorely lacking in modern American politics. As the North won the Civil War, Lincoln refused to boast of his accomplishments or rub the South’s failures in its face, but instead repeatedly emphasized that all Americans were flawed and had tolerated slavery, and only that could explain the ensuing bloodbath of the Civil War. He was a soft-spoken man who argued that it was American democracy that was the great guiding light to the world, and he was only a temporary spokesman for it (one funny tidbit Guelzo dug up was Lincoln’s admiration for individual soldiers, as he admitted he was personally a coward who would likely drop his gun and run in an actual battle—could you imagine a modern politician admitting the same thing?!). Guelzo is willing to engage in the fun speculation that many historians (quite understandably) are unwilling to do, which is how much better off the nation might have been had Lincoln survived his assassination. Given the limits of 19th century American government and ideology, it’s unlikely that Lincoln could have solved racism, but it also feels undoubtedly true that the violence and chaos of Reconstruction might have been tempered had a steadier hand been in the presidency appealing to America’s better nature (in contrast to the stubborn racism of Lincoln’s Vice President Andrew Johnson). 

Ultimately, Guelzo sees in Lincoln a humble and admirable figure who might have been ignored in the modern raunch and boasting of 21st century America, but whose light voice still echoes across the ages to provide an example of steady and noble leadership. He was a deeply imperfect man who was willing to admit he was, yet he also believed this nation could overcome any obstacle and was capable of achieving anything we set our minds to. If that’s not someone we should turn to today for lessons from History, then who is?