federate independence and the right ofrnsecession. Technically, he may havernbeen correct in some of these claims, butrnhis insistence on them in the face of therndissolution of the Union and thernprospect of war and at a time when evenrnradicals on both sides were suggestingrncompromises reveals his mediocrityrnas a national political leader. Seward,rnAdams, Sen. Lyman Trumbull of Illinois,rnSen. John Crittenden of Kentucky,rnand the Virginia legislature all advocatedrnor offered compromises, as did commissionersrnfrom the Confederacy, but Lincolnrnrejected them out of hand orrnignored them.rnWhen he first polled his Cabinetrnabout re-provisioning Fort Sumter, thernSecretary of State, the Secretary of War,rnthe Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretaryrnof the Interior advised against it.rnTreasury Secretary Salmon Chase advisedrnagainst it if it would mean war.rnWinfield Scott warned him that it wouldrnmean secession of the Upper South andrnthat Sumter could not be reinforcedrnwithout a major military and naval commitment.rnBoth Stephen Douglas andrnHorace Greeley also favored evacuatingrnthe fort.rnAnd yet he decided at last to re-provisionrnit. His decision to do so was therngreatest single blunder in American history,rnsince it clearly invited and virtuallyrnforced the Confederacy to fire on the fortrnand allowed Lincoln to call for 75,000rntroops in response. His call for troops inrnturn provoked the secession of the UpperrnSouth and the completion of the Confederacy,rnincluding the secession of Virginia.rnIt allowed the Confederacy to addrnimmeasurably to its own strength, placedrnits borders adjacent to Washington itself,rnand gave the South its greatest militaryrncommanders, Lee and Jackson.rnWhile Lincoln insisted on formalitiesrnand legalisms when confronted by the secessionrncrisis, he showed no such punctiliousnessrnwhen dealing with Southernrnsympathizers in the North or with borderrnstates. The man who could not risk arnmeeting with Confederate commissionersrnbecause it might imply recognition ofrnthe Confederacy had no problem with illegallyrnsuspending habeas corpus, allowingrnthe arbitrary incarceration of politicalrnopponents, and using federal troopsrnto prevent secession of the border states,rnnor did the champion of perpetualrnunionism have much problem with thernsecession of West Virginia from its parentrnstate. “The next years,” writes ProfessorrnDonald, “would see greater infringementsrnon individual liberties than in anyrnother period of American history.”rnThe result of his blunder was the selfinflictedrngenocide of the Civil War, andrninstead of accomplishing his statedrngoal, the preservation of the Union, herncaused its mortal wounding. What kindrnof “Union” is it when half of it is forcedrnback into it at the cost of military devastationrnand conquest, and much of the remainderrnhas to be held under martialrnlaw and the suspension of civil liberties?rnI do not argue that Lincoln’s course ofrnconduct or his language was deliberatelyrndeceptive, that he intended all along tornprovoke war, overthrow the Constitution,rnand make himself dictator in a Caesarianrngrab for power. But the characterrnthat emerges from his conduct remainsrnthat of a small-town politico, more concernedrnwith the spoils of office and therncadging of votes than with the interests ofrnthe nation, and too inexperienced andrnpoorly educated to meet the challengesrnhis office demanded. He is simply thernclassic case of the Peter Principle —arnman promoted beyond the level of hisrncompetence.rnNor do I believe that he ever intendedrnto re-found the American political orderrnalong lines radically different from whatrnit was as he found it. Lincoln subscribedrnto a fairly conventional Whig nationalism,rnas conventional as it was questionablernfrom a constitutional and historicalrnviewpoint, but nonetheless useful forrnwhat he considered the great practicalrnobject of government, the encouragementrnof economic affluence. His doctrinernof equality was intended to justifyrnthat role of government. “On the side ofrnthe Union,” he told Congress in his messagernof July 4,1861, the war “is a strugglernfor maintaining in the world that formrnand substance of government whosernleading object is to elevate the conditionrnof men—to lift artificial weights from allrnshoulders; to clear the paths of laudablernpursuit for all; to afford men an unfetteredrnstart, and a fair chance in the racernof life.” As Harry Jaffa has put it, “Thernprinciple of Equality, far from enfranchisingrnany leveling action of government,rnis the ground for the recognitionrnof those human differences which arosernnaturally, but in civil society, when humanrnindustry and acquisitiveness arernemancipated.” I do not agree that thernprinciple of equality does not enfranchisernleveling—the very lifting of “artificialrnweights” by the state is itself a processrnof leveling—but it does serve to justifyrnthe egalitarian scramble for wealth, andrnin Lincoln’s mind its purpose was exactlyrnthat.rnBut Lincoln failed to see the flaws ofrnsuch a theory or where it would lead—tornthe unlimited expansion of centralizedrnstate power, the destiuction of the powerrnand authority of the states, the deathrnblow to the Old Republic, and the enthronementrnof Economic Man as thernsummum bonum of human endeavor.rnBoth the late M.E. Bradford and liberalrnhistorian James McPherson rightly seernLincoln as the godfather of the “fundamentalrntransformation of the relationshiprnbetween power and liberty” that thernwar brought. The result was the launchingrnof the federal leviathan on the coursernit has followed ever since. The politicalrnand plutocratic corruption of the latern19th century and the eventual marriagernof plutocrat and bureaucrat in the modernrnmanagerial state of our own day arernLincoln’s legacy, whether he intendedrnthem or not.rnThe ethic of acquisitive scramble andrnthe politics of a leviathan state busying itselfrnwith the systematic removal of “artificialrnweights” that impede acquisition arerntoday the common bond that most mainstieamrnconservatives share with the generalrnpublic, and it is the only ethic thatrnremains accessible to most Americans ofrnany persuasion or social stratum. Thernmoral reflexes that demand at least thernappearance of integrity and sobriety inrnpublic leaders are themselves “artificialrnweights” from which the Lincolnianrnleviathan is committed to emancipatingrnus. Today, conservatives who are still animatedrnby such reflexes gaze in dismay asrnan American public expresses indifferencernto the moral conduct of the chiefrnexecutive and praises him for his successfulrnmanagement of the economy. InrnFebruary, the Wall Street Journal quotedrna citizen of Illinois, the “Land of Lincoln,”rnwho angrily retorted to its reporter,rn”Don’t tell us that we have a bad guy inrn[the White House]. We can see for ourselvesrnthat things are better,” and herrnhusband added in agreement, “He hasrnkept up the economy.” Why should wernbe surprised that the triumph of EconomicrnMan results in indifference to andrndenial of the moral degradation of thernpresidency and the nation it serves? Itrnwas Abraham Lincoln, wittingly or not,rnwho put us on the path to where we arerntoday.rn40/CHRONICLESrnrnrn