Is Obama Lincoln to Hillary's Seward?

Political pundits have likened Obama's oratory, its style and content, to that of Abraham Lincoln. Most recently, Gary Wills has compared Barack Obama's speech on race in America, "A More Perfect Union," with Abraham Lincoln's 1860 Cooper Union address. In fact, like most of Lincoln's great speeches, Obama's speech evokes history and broader political principles to address contemporary racial divisions. Its title too, which calls on ordinary American citizens to perfect their Union, is reminiscent of Lincoln's Civil War speeches. Like Lincoln, who was dismissed for being a "Black Republican" for opposing racial slavery, Obama ironically stands accused of playing the race card by Sean Wilentz, the Clintons' historian in residence, because he opposes the divisive politics of race.

More interestingly, the Democratic presidential nomination contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton bears some startling similarities to the 1860 Republican presidential race between Abraham Lincoln of Illinois and William Henry Seward of New York. In a series of strange historical coincidences, not only do the leading Democratic contenders for the presidency hail from the same states as their Republican predecessors but their political resumes are analogous too. Like Lincoln, who was a one term Congressman and who opposed the Mexican War of 1846-1848 as a land grab for slavery, Obama is a one term Senator and is known for his early opposition to the Iraq war. Like Lincoln, Obama is known for his soaring oratory and vision of change at a moment of crisis. Like Lincoln, voters view Obama as an unknown quantity but are inspired by him. Physically too, the tall and lanky Obama might well be an African American version of the man whose legacy he explicitly invoked when announcing his candidacy in Springfield, Illinois.

Clinton, on the other hand, looks a lot like Seward did in 1860. If anything, he was even more tested by national politics than she. Seward had been Governor of New York, the man behind the short-lived presidency of Zachary Taylor (1848-1850), and the Senator from New York in the 1850s. He was a leading voice of antislavery in Congress and reviled by southern Democrats on a regular basis. Compared to Lincoln, a small town lawyer, Seward, like Clinton, had been close to the White House, Congressional politics and was the more experienced and allegedly able candidate.

In 1860, however, the Republican nominating convention dumped Seward for the dark horse candidate, Abraham Lincoln. Seward commanded the loyalty of the party faithful but his lieutenants in the convention were completely out maneuvered by Lincoln's supporters from Illinois. The unexpected success of Barack Obama's presidential campaign strongly resembles the ultimate triumph of the Lincoln forces. Lincoln came from behind to defeat the front runner whose candidacy, like Clinton's, had an aura of inevitability about it until the very eve of the Republican convention.

A majority of Republicans in the convention viewed Seward, a veteran of many battles over slavery expansion in Congress, as too polarizing a figure. One of the biggest arguments against Hillary Clinton is precisely that she is too polarizing a figure. Over the years, Seward, like the Clintons, had made many political enemies, some within his own party. Some Republicans voted for Lincoln simply because they would rather not vote for Seward. Most Republicans went for Lincoln in 1860 because they wanted to broaden their party base and appeal to the less antislavery lower north. The solidly antislavery upper north was already in their column. That is same the argument that the Obama campaign is making now. No matter who is the Democratic presidential nominee, the reliably blue states will vote Democratic. But Obama might bring some red states and less partisan voters into the Democratic column. Here is the potential to create a new progressive majority that can shift the terms of political debate and transcend the politics of race. Just as Lincoln's election brought decades of slaveholder dominance of the federal government to an end, Obama can turn the tide on conservative dominance of political discourse in this country. Indeed, the Democratic party today is a counterpart to the mid-nineteenth century liberal Republican party, the party of Lincoln, and the Republican party today is a lot like its historical predecessor, the conservative Democratic party with its political base in the solid south.

During the Civil War, the tried and true Seward recommended negotiations with southern secessionists. It was the political novice, Lincoln, rather than Seward who comprehended the momentous nature of the war and moved toward emancipation, the arming of former slaves, and black citizenship. In the end, Seward and his pro-slavery southern Democratic detractors shared a common political world that Lincoln rejected. While John McCain and Hillary Clinton can vouch for each other's jingoistic patriotism, political experience and military toughness, Obama appeals in Lincoln's words, which Senator Edward Kennedy repeated in his endorsement of him, to the "better angels of our nature." Given the historical record, that might just be the quality that makes a great president.

Comments

[worriedsenior]

In all that has happened since Friday, the voters need to step back and remember why they were so engaged and drawn to Barack Obama. Once they do that, they will again see him as the uniter he is and how much better he will be for our country. He is branded more liberal than Hillary, but if you really put her solutions to problems against his, she is all for raising taxes and spending much more so than Obama. He is dedicated to bringing both political parties together to bring about ,much wiser solutions than Hillary. Hillary is all about fighting and brow beating her opposition. It did not work for her when Bill was president and will not now. Not only that, they were forced to work with the opposition party in power for the rmainder of Bill's 6 years in office and made her first choice of how to solve the health crisis totally out of touch. Thus she was pushed into being a traditional 'first lady' and unable to accomplish their prior goals!

[ChasG]

Manisha Sinha's article is revisionist history, and another attempt at "reifying" the Obama nation, that is, to mistakenly regard something that is abstract (like wishful thinking) as something real. Everyone who supports Obama has differing views of what he'll do once in office. Some think he is more liberal than Hillary Clinton, some think he is less so. Some even think he will scrap NAFTA and CAFTA-- he's too smart to do that, but he's also too smart to say he supports them either-- typical political double-speak. Not that Obama is different from the other candidates in this way, they are all politicians-- we need to remember that. I still think he would be a great President eight years from now. But the relentless efforts to elevate him to sainthood, or the new "Abraham Lincoln,") are really set-ups for disillusionment. The best part of Barack Obama is that he is Barack Obama.

[Durango]

So we should support Hillary because we won't be disillusioned?

We know ahead of time that she will disappoint Democrats?

P.S. She is not writing revisionist history (although all writing of history is revisionist). She is writing an historical analogy.

Comparing events in todays world with events in history. And is very astute.

[illinoisan]

Spoil sport.

[mjc]

The comment of mine below was to a longer post in which I was critical of Manisha Sinha's historical analysis. Not sure why it wasn't posted but of course it wasn't the Huffington party line.

[mjc]

That is two years BEFORE the end of the Civil War, not after.

[mjc]

The underlying assumptions of this blog are totally anti-historical and ridiculous. Sinha represents Lincoln as some crusading abolitionist, she calls him a "black" Republican. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lincoln was interested in the union. Period. The Emancipation Proclamation wasn't even signed until late in 1863, two years after the end of the Civil War. The "crusading Republicans", the reconstructionists were the real radicals and for a while following the war black MEN were representing Southern districts in Congress and in their local communities. The speech at Gettysburg said nothing about freeing blacks. What typified that speech is Lincoln's deep grief at the great loss of human life, mostly white, and the evidence of a much deeper division in this nation than was imagined. As for Clinton being a Seward, she is a WOMAN, the first woman to get this far toward the presidency. Seward had much more political experience than Hillary has. He was a charter member of the good 'ole boys club in upstate New York, headed by a fellow named Thurlow Weed, a machine politician and a winner. He WAS expected to win the nomination but there were others who had grand ideas, Salmon Chase, Edmund Stanton, for instance. So Lincoln was the candidate on something like four or five ballots as the compromise, someone who the other "winners" thought they could control. Yes indeed, the Democrats of the day hated the Republicans as they were mostly Southerners, afraid of abolition, and slaveowners.

[xrayman]

OMG, first he was JFK, then Bobby, MLK, Oprah, and now Lincoln? Who next? George Washington, Truman, Roosevelt, the Pope, Jesus?

[stringer]

What an excellent and historically accurate article. I have long noticed the historical parallels between Lincoln and Obama but I completely missed the historical analogy to Hillary Clinton and Seward. You're so right.

I hope a lot of people take the time to read this, and really think about it, not just immediatley respond to it.

It should be mandatory reading, especially for the superdelegates.

[illinoisan]

Yes, it's an apt comparison. It just so happens I'm currently reading Team of Rivals by D.K. Goodwin and I'm right on the chapter covering the 1860 convention. Nobody today could read it without automatically comparing it to the current contest.

Just like Seward, Clinton saw herself as the inevitable nominee and therefore failed to organize an effective campaign. Just like Lincoln, Obama saw himself as a dark horse with oratorical skills who saw the "inevitable" candidate's high negatives within her own party and saw an opportunity to be the compromise candidate for the opposition.

The only flaw in the comparison is that Seward had tons of experience and Hillary only has her last name to run on.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

I don't know, Hillary and Lincoln are both Republican­s...

[sebocd]

Actually Hillary belongs to her own party which she founded and of which she is the only member. It's called the Hillarian Party of One. Its motto: "If you cann't control it, kill it."

[Tulka2]

People felt tender towards Lincoln in the same way they feel protetive of Obama. We have no film of Lincoln, but from descriptions, i think Obama is temperamentally a lot like Lincoln. We respond to a sadness as they did in the past to Lincoln. We love Obama's goofy good-looks, as people loved Lincoln for his. It's the way Obama will think of something funny to say and you see it first in his face as he looks down and smiles to himself. You know it's going to be good. God bless him. It is wonderful to be alive and see a great historical figure in one's own time. If he doesn't do one more thing, we shall talk about him forever. I'm glad i have eyes to see and ears to hear. Or put it this way..... If Abraham Lincoln could chose someone to come back as...? Well, i think he would look just like Obama. Don't get me wrong. Obama has feet that stink, as his wife reminds us. The most glorius thing about him is that he is our own. Our very own.

[mjc]

Once again, Tulka2, it is difficult to be respectful of your understanding of history or historical figures but even worse your understanding of Obama. Lots and lots of people didn't like Lincoln, even blacks. Lincoln was probably one of the most depressed presidents in our history, and his depression only deepened after the death of his son and the approaching insanity of his wife. No, not tempermentally like Lincoln in other ways as well. Instead of sending his political opponents off to their own states, he used their talents in his Cabinet and LISTENED to their solutions. That was the unity he believed in. And the whole point of his presidency was to preserve the union.

[bubbainca]

Wow, this article comes pretty close to painting present day republicans as the bigoted descendants of confederates. I scoured the comments to see if anybody protested (just out of curiosity, not that I care about that characterization) but none so far.

[Tulka2]

Yes it's true. This article is not original in that opinion. The south was Democratic, which was the party that supported segregation in the south, until President L.B.J. signed the Civil Rights Bill. At the time, the Democratic President Lyndon Baynes Jonhson was quoted as saying, "We [the Dems] have lost the south for a generation". The south hated integration of the races and en mass converted, ironically, to the party of Lincoln, which became the party of thinly veiled racism. I think, oh sweet irony, Obama could bring them back.

[illinoisan]

Thinly veiled racism? That's some sheer fabric. What did Nixon call it? Oh yeah - THE SOUTHERN STRATEGY.

[SMP]

Remember Lincoln WON!!!!!

[StephenDedalus82]

I've been away for a while, and I must say the Obamalove has grown to even more ridiculous levels than it was a couple months ago. If anyone says one negative thing about Saint Barack, or one positive thing about Senator Clinton, the swarms attack. All of you are acting like a childish little cult.

[rationalthought1]

What she says his historically accurate. When Clinton proposed her Lincoln /Douglas style debate the first thing I thought of was the numerous parallels. I can't imagine Hillary is unaware of these similariies - she probably just assumes people won't recognize them. i have to say this is the first time I've seen anything in the media make note of them. I guess we are not that up on our history these days.

[illinoisan]

If Clinton knew what she was talking about when she brought up the "Lincoln/Douglas" allusion, she wouldn't have brought it up.

It reminded me of the most embarrassing episode of Lincoln's career when he was challenged to a duel and almost went through with it. In accepting the challenge, Lincoln got to choose the weapons and, towering in physical stature over the challenger, chose broad swords.

I was half hoping that Obama would accept Clinton's challenge by taking the first 90 minutes, allowing Clinton the hour long rebuttal and taking the half-hour follow-up. Clinton would have been dumb-founded to learn what a "Lincoln-Douglas" style debate would truly amount to.

[stryker]

I still find it funny that the clintonistas keep repeating the myth that all Obama people do is complain. Wasn't it hillary herself who cried about the press being down on her? What the Obama supporters do get ticked at is the clinton lie-spreading, the innuendos by hillary about Barack (not a Muslim "as far as I know", doesn't pass the C-in-C test...). It is not complaining, it is setting the record straight and showing just how low hillary can go.
Funny how hillary's supporters consider her God's gift to America, yet over 60% of Democrats, let alone the nation, believe her to be untrustworthy. Do we really need someone we cannot trust in the WH after this administration? What would James Joyce's Stephan Dedalus have to say about that?

[rbloom]

One other analogy with 1860 (that may have already been mentioned; I haven't read all the comments): In his excellent book "Lincoln at Cooper Union," Harold Holzer observes at one point that no other president in our history could trace his nomination back to a single speech. If Obama wins, Holzer will have to revise that passage to note Obama's 2004 convention address.
That said, I see a lot more direct and compelling parallels to the 1972 Democratic race. You have a historically liberal, labor-backed "establishment" candidate being taken by surprise in the primaries by a movement phenomenon and falling back on negative campaigning to try to undercut the upstart heading into the convention. I think we'll see Hillary's campaign continue through to Denver, and use credentials challenges (i.e. Florida and Michigan) and platform fights to try to steamroll the delegates into abandoning Obama, just a Humphrey's campaign tried to do to McGovern in '72.

[mick3]

What I don't get is why black skin is considered so much more important than white skin. After all, Obama is half white,but you'd never know it from bloggers, pundits, or anyone else. Maybe it would freak out racists to be reminded of that. Probably, for some of them the father probably should have been lynched long ago. If that sounds extreme in this day and age, just look at what happened to Bell in NYC. And the atrocious outcome, so far.

Well, Clinton is clearly brilliant; the problem is that she has been Machiavelli-ized over time, and now believes that she is one of the elite few. With that mindset, we get support of NAFTA (so what if it destroys the middle class; they aren't among the elite); we get her co-sponsoring of a bill to outlaw flag-burning, kissing up to the elitist Right; she voted against the bill to ban cluster bombs, which maim and killl more children than military personnel; she is perfectly willing to send more and more people to die for empire. Her disdain of the rest of us is made clear by her actions.

Would hate to see her and Bill at it, going after poor women and workers on behalf of their good buddies, multinational corporations, let alone the rapacious pharmaceutical industry. I disagree with Obama on a number of issues, but Clinton, by her actions, makes me sick and angry.

[MrMilesLong]

"What I don't get is why black skin is considered so much more important than white skin. "

Uh...you ever heard of the one-drop rule? If not, maybe you should read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule

Is a social construct, albeit a racist one at that, created by white Americans. The fact that the media still applies this rule today says a lot.

[illinoisan]

On the other hand, there's Michelle Obama's anecdote that Barack is considered black whenever he tries to hail a cab.

[Nezua]

HuffPost's Pick

i don't think it is that black skin is more important per se...it's that it is phenomenally unprecedented that a black man can run for president now. so that is the remarkable part. the blackness presents all the obstacles that he is dealing so well with. also because "half white" sort of only relates to your parents. it kind of gets dissolved at obama's level. as he said, people dont look at him and say "that mixed fella" or "that half white fella," they say "that black fella."

[ElliotNC]

It's also phenomenally unprecedented (to the max) that a woman can run for president now, too. Isn't it?

Black men could vote for fifty years before ANY woman got the right.

[stryker]

I love it when I hear someone say that America isn't ready for a Black president. Bush and Cheney (Barack's cousin) are whiter than white and can anyone say they did a good job.
If we're not ready for a Black president now, then when? 2012? 2016? 2020? The 22nd century?
Would someone let us know so we can mark it on our calendars.

[Thunderbeach]

You present an interesting premise, but I think you left out the idea that Seward was seen at the time as a radical within the party. His efforts to move toward the center were met with distrust from conservatives within the party and disloyalty from fellow radicals. On the other side was Lincoln, the articulate moderate. Apply these observations to your premise, and one might come to the complete opposite conclusion about our current two contenders.

[Susanfrom29]

Though not a professional historian, I have read a great deal of history and have felt the same thing for the last few months. I haven't dared to express it to anyone other than my husband because it seems, at first glance, to be such an outrageous claim.

The parallels do seem uncanny though, especially when you throw in Sen Obama's interview on Fox news. Lincoln never stopped trying to reach out to his political enemies. In the face of bitter opposition from members of his own party he always tried to reach a compromise, knowing that only with the support of all Americans could the war be won and a lasting peace achieved. (That that peace was not achieved is due mostly to his death.) He too, suffered at the hands of a biased press corps.

I don't know if Americans today can be as informed an electorate as they were then. There were no Brittany Spears or American Idols to absorb attention; newspapers throughout the country printed full transcripts of the Lincoln Douglas debates, even though it was a state, and not a national, election. Politics was a primary form of entertainment and formed the basis of conversation.

Those of us who take the time and trouble to learn about the people who wish to govern should also take the time and trouble to learn about the people who have governed, good and bad, so that we know exactly what to look for in today's candidates.