President Joe Biden’s first address to Congress (not quite a State of the Union- it’s too early to be called that) was predictably boring and long winded. Senator Tim Scott’s response, however, was concise and memorable. So I’d recommend skipping Joe’s speech and just watching Tim’s.
One thing I noticed in both speeches were references to ideas from our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln. As I noted in an earlier post, Biden tried to claim the mantle of Lincoln the preserver of the union in his inauguration address, where he repeated the line that his “whole soul” was in it. In last night’s speech there was another Lincolnian theme- that our democracy is in a time of testing. Biden said: “we will meet the central challenge of the age by proving that democracy is durable and strong.”
Lincoln similarly said in the Gettysburg address that his situation was “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” Harry Jaffa points out in his book A New Birth of Freedom all of the many connections back to the Founders the “test of democracy” theme has. As Lincoln said in his 1861 message to Congress (perhaps a model for Biden given his view of the Capitol riots), it is for us “to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections.”
Biden has a fair Lincolnian point, I think. But it should not be forgotten that Lincoln was not simply a defender of any old kind of democracy. He only cared about a democracy that respected the natural law. He was the staunchest opponent of popular sovereignty as it was espoused by Stephen A. Douglas- where the people could democratically choose to deny African Americans their natural rights.
In his response speech to Biden, Tim Scott of South Carolina also tapped into one of the deepest Lincoln roots: his analogy between the Biblical salvation story and the United States. Scott said:
“America is not a racist country. It's backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it's wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present…
Original sin is never the end of the story. Not in our souls and not for our nation. The real story is always redemption.”
The implication of what Scott is saying seems to be that Democrats accusing America of “systemic racism” are claiming America is beyond redemption- an incorrigibly racist place. Scott does not deny that America has an original sin- slavery and racism, just as Lincoln acknowledged. But Lincoln also believed that progress could be made, and that redemption was possible through a kind of Baptism. That is the key theme in both his “Gettysburg Address” and his “2nd Inaugural.”
In the Gettysburg address, America was “conceived in liberty” (the Declaration), but its original sin of slavery required it to be born again- a “New Birth of Freedom.” Just as Christians are washed in the blood of Jesus’ sacrifice, Lincoln said that the blood of union soldiers would “dedicate,” “consecrate,” and “hallow” this ground- the land of the free, the United States.
In the 2nd Inaugural, Lincoln grimly reflected that not only the blood of union soldiers, but also confederate soldiers might be the price for America’s original sin:
“If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him. Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'“
However, Lincoln had hope that Americans would “bind up the nation's wounds.” So, one can see that when Tim Scott compared slavery and racism to original sin and (importantly) claimed the original sin could be forgiven, he was walking in the footsteps of Lincoln. And in a much more profound way than ole Joe.
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Thoughtful post, enjoyed it. Any thoughts on Lincoln from the perspective of postmodern conservatism? Didn't Lawler argue that Lincoln's natural law democracy, or his view of the limits to democracy, depends on Christian premises Jaffa overlooks, perhaps deliberately?
Yes, that sounds like a Lawler argument & I think it has very strong backing from Lincoln's war-years rhetoric, which is increasingly Biblical.
Chris--this is the first I learn of Sen. Scott's remarkable story. His rhetoric seems comparatively lacking; playing politician on TV might not be his talent.