Zinn’s thesis 6:
The government initiated the Civil War; Lincoln represented the middle class; Lincoln held racist views.
Opposing view:
This appears to be a considerable distortion of the historical record. The South’s attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861 is generally conceded to be the spark that ignited the Civil War. President Lincoln, until that point, tried to do whatever he could to avoid the outbreak of war; his inaugural address pleads with the South for peace and restraint:
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ it.
“I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”[1]
Zinn also criticizes Lincoln for only caring about the propertied interests of the North; Zinn suggests Lincoln represented primarily middle class interests: a questionable view given Lincoln’s relatively humble birth with its attendant hard physical labor prior to his becoming an attorney, circuit rider, state representative, etc. One could argue as easily, and with a greater factual foundation, that he was of the working class and never forgot his roots. “I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular relations to recommend me.”[2]
His story could be found in “the Annals of the poor”, as Lincoln once remarked: “it is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of me or my early life. It can all be condensed into a single sentence; and that sentence you will find in Gray’s Elegy: “The short and simple annals of the poor.’ That’s my life and that’s all you or anyone else can make out of it.”[3]
Zinn’s claim that Lincoln was essentially “middle class” in life-style, values, and outlook, simply chooses to overlook his pioneer origins and the deep impressions his growing up years made on the full-grown man. Instead, Zinn’s approach is to argue that certain of Lincoln’s policies as president were not motivated by altruistic motives but rather by this middle class outlook.
To do so successfully, however, Zinn needs to show that Lincoln always thought and acted like a member of the middle class but here his hypothesis runs into numerous difficulties: namely, Lincoln did not come from the middle class as it was then conceived of in American society. Further, there is precious little evidence that becoming “middle class” was ever his major ambition or that such status defined his life and political thought. His study of democratic principles reveals an intellect that soars beyond the narrowing confines of class-bound ideas.
To follow Zinn’s reasoning one step farther, Lincoln started the Civil War because that was in the interests of the middle class. Not only is Zinn’s understanding of Lincoln the man quite suspect but his account of how the Civil War actually began is substantially at odds with the accepted chronology of nearly all other historians.
Lincoln was elected president in the late fall of 1860; the southern states began seceding as they perceived Lincoln to be an anti-slavery man who would not be friendly to their interests. As part of the secession movement, the South began eyeing several forts that belonged to the federal government, claiming the forts and arsenals as their own. One such place was Fort Sumter, which they attacked.
Lincoln tried to persuade South Carolina to allow him to re-supply the fort with food and other non-military necessities for the soldiers at Fort Sumter; the Confederates refused, continued their assault, and forced the fort to surrender. President Lincoln then concluded that this attack upon a federal fort could not stand.
For Zinn to suggest that Lincoln started the Civil War is ludicrous and flies in the face of the known facts; it demonstrates how far a historian may go to bend the truth to force stubborn facts (refusing to cooperate) to conform to his unique particular historical interpretation. Lincoln never authorized troops to attack the Confederacy in early 1861; he took no military action whatsoever until after the attack on Fort Sumter.
Zinn’s views on Lincoln are at time disappointing, for the various fault lines in Zinn’s approach seem to converge and emerge at their weakest in his description of the sixteenth president. Zinn wishes to lay too great a burden on Lincoln’s shoulders; perhaps Lincoln’s own comment comes closer to a sober historical assessment: “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”[4]
[1] Holzer, Harold, ed. Abraham Lincoln the Writer: A Treasury of His Greatest Speeches and Letters (Honesdale, Penn: Boyds Mill press, 2000): “From His First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861, Washington”, pp. 55-56.
[2] Fehrenbacher, Don E., ed. Abraham Lincoln: A Documentary Portrait through his Speeches and Writings (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1964): “Entering Politics: Communication to the People of Sangamo County, March 9, 1832”, pp. 31-32.
[3] Herndon, William Henry and Weik, Jesse W. Herndon’s Life of Lincoln: The History and Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln (Cleveland and New York: The World Publishing Company, 1888), p. 15.
[4] Letter to Albert G. Hodges, April 4, 1864 from the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy p. Basier, et al.
