The Republican Betrayal of Lincoln's Legacy Continues

What is it with Republicans and the Civil War?

First, Nikki Haley botched a question about slavery’s role as the cause of secession and civil war. She eventually acknowledged that slavery was indeed the cause, but why the hesitation and opaque language? Why not just come out and state with confidence that slavery caused the Civil War and Republicans should embrace the fact that their party worked to abolish it.

After all, Haley is running to be the Republican nominee for president of the United States. You know, the “Party of Lincoln.”

Of course, the answer to these questions has a lot to do with the ways in which the two major political parties have shifted over the last fifty years on issues revolving around race and the legacy of slavery.

I recently discussed this with historian Tim Galsworthy.

And last week former President Donald Trump referenced the Civil War and Lincoln during a speech at a campaign stop in Iowa. I don’t know the context in which it was raised. He may not either given the way he rambles and veers off topic during these speeches.

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I guess it was another opportunity for Trump to tout his supposed negotiation skills as a businessman, which, let’s review, led to him declaring bankruptcy at least four times, not to mention his failed negotiations as president that are too numerous to recall here.

Here is Trump on the Civil War:

I don't know what it is, the Civil War was so fascinating, so horrible—was so horrible, but so fascinating...This is something that could've been negotiated, you know, it was just for all those people to die.

Abraham Lincoln, of course if you negotiated, you probably wouldn't even know who Abraham Lincoln was...It would've been different, but that would've been okay...I know the whole process that they went through and they just couldn't get along and that would've been something that could've been negotiated and they wouldn't have had that problem. But, it was a hell of a time.

I don’t want to review the many attempts that were made to compromise over the issue of slavery in the decades leading to secession and war.

Trump seems to think that Lincoln was in a position, where he could have impacted these “negotiations.” Let’s remember that between Lincoln’s election in early November 1860 and his inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states in the Deep South had already seceded and established a new government in Montgomery, Alabama.

Even as others scrambled to find a solution to the escalating crisis, Lincoln largely remained silent, rather than risk being misinterpreted.

Lincoln has an extensive track record when it comes to negotiations and compromise throughout his presidency over such issues as compensated emancipation with the Border Slave State; differences within the Republican Party; and negotiations with Confederate representatives in early 1865 over the conditions of peace.

Of course, Lincoln was not a perfect negotiator. There is plenty to critique, but that isn’t my point right now.

What I find striking is that not a single Republican came to Lincoln’s rescue, perhaps apart from Chris Christie. No one sought to take advantage of an ideal Lloyd Bentsen moment:

‘I’ve read a good deal about Lincoln’s skill in steering the nation through a bloody and costly civil war and Donald Trump is no Abraham Lincoln.’

Perhaps I am asking too much during an election year.

Between Haley and Trump, it is becoming clearer by the day how far the Republican Party has moved away from any meaningful connection to the “Party of Lincoln” and its role in saving the Union and ending slavery.

The party now treads carefully when discussing slavery, if at all, and according to the leader of the Republican Party and current presidential primary front runner, Lincoln was incompetent.

You are more likely to find Republicans speaking out forcefully in defense of the war record of Robert E. Lee or Republican-controlled legislatures passing laws preventing communities from removing Confederate monuments. This week you can add Florida to that list.

I never thought that for the Republican Party, ‘getting right with Lincoln’—too borrow a phrase from historian David Donald—meant distorting, if not abandoning altogether, the most consequential moment in this nation’s history.

But here we are.

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