‘This Is Going to Be the Most Important Election Since 1860’

[David Lockmiller]

Opinion
Guest Essay

Abraham Lincoln’s Wiliest Trick Should Be a Lesson for Biden
Aug. 27, 2024

Michael Vorenberg teaches at Brown University and is the author of the forthcoming book “Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War.”

Professor Vorenberg wrote: [O]n Aug. 23, 1864, Lincoln drafted the “Blind Memorandum”. The memo stated that if Lincoln lost the election, he would “cooperate with the president elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration.” Then Lincoln distributed it to his cabinet secretaries with the text hidden (hence it was “blind”) and told them to sign it even though they could not read it. . . . He thus committed his administration to a bipartisan mission to preserve the Union regardless of the election’s outcome.

I believe that President Lincoln asked his cabinet members to sign "blindly" the memorandum in order to establish the date he committed himself "to a bipartisan mission to preserve the Union regardless of the election’s outcome."