The Emancipation Proclamation: "A Poor Document, But a Mighty Act"

[kerry]

I recently saw this comment in a comments section of a political article (I know, not the place to find wisdom, but I thought it was pretty good), which I posted below. The reason people can't understand it is because it seems to contain "irreconcilable" practicality and radicalism, futility and action, etc. But it is pretty easily reconcilable if you understand the history, conditions, and Lincoln's outlook, which most people are clueless about. I always knew that actually taking action to free the slaves and enforce it had to have been an extremely big deal, with seemingly insurmountable pushback despite its obvious moral rightness, but I never understood it until I educated myself. Most people have no curiosity about it and even actively resist understanding it -- in this particular case, people are very sensitive about "property," even though there are definitely times where concern for property takes a backseat to larger goals about humanity, and the Civil War was one of them. I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself clearly, but to me that's where much of the inspiration that comes from it lies. Much of the Cabinet was fighting like crazy for these ideals with no prospect of remuneration or even necessarily benefit for their family, losing children and fortunes. We always talk about th American Dream about being about your home, yard, and kids getting better opportunities, etc., but that's not what it meant to them - it was much deeper and less personal. Historians like Forner throw up their hands whenever they are interviewed on the latest "controversy," because people try to force it into some simplistic debate. I read his book recently and it was great.

"Lincoln was prudent, yes, but he was always capable of daring much and risking more if prudence demanded it. The Emancipation Proclamation was a prudent response to the Southern insurrection: take their slaves away from them, and you take away the South's capacity to simultaneously feed itself and field an army. But by the same token, he literally made illegal the single largest source of wealth in the nation. In 1860, the combined value of all the slaves in the South was greater than the entire combined value of every factory, every railroad, every farm, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in the country, and he just up and said "Nope. Excluding Kentucky for purely practical reasons and until the end of the war, any slave that comes into our possession is now not property, you can't get it back, you get zero money for, and which we will arm and teach how to shoot and kill you and everyone you love at the first opportunity." If Obama had responded to the Great Recession by abolishing every stock and bond in the country, and then somehow taught those stocks to shoot dead any stockbroker or stockholder they found, it'd have been about a third of what Lincoln did with slavery.

And yet, Lincoln's decision was, again, the model of prudence. The Civil War was an unprecedented crisis, and in such circumstances, sometimes the prudent and sensible thing to do is also incredibly risky and daring."