Canceling Lincoln

If someone nicknamed the Great Emancipator is cancelable, then who’s safe? No one from our nation’s past, that’s for sure. By Aaron Kliegman Exactly 159 years ago last week, on Sept. 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. With his pen, Lincoln declared that, on Jan. 1 of the following year, all slaves in the Confederate states “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” The proclamation didn’t actually liberate the roughly 4 million people held in slavery in the United States at the time. It couldn’t be enforced in the Confederacy, which was engaged in rebellion against the Union, and didn’t apply to the slave-holding border states that never seceded. But Lincoln did change the legal status of millions of black people in the South from enslaved to free, knowing victory on the battlefield would bring liberation on the ground. And any slave that escaped and crossed Union lines became a free man. Moreover, Lincoln redefined the Civil War for the world to see as a struggle not just to preserve the Union but also to end slavery. Apparently, this isn’t good enough for the woke, however. In January, San Francisco’s Board of Education voted to rename 44 schools, including schools named after Lincoln. (Public outcry led the body months later to suspend its plans.) In February, Chicago began examining five statues of Lincoln, among 41 other monuments, for possible removal. In March, a CNN reporter wrote a piece headlined, “Did black lives matter to Abraham Lincoln? It's complicated.” In that piece, the reporter noted that, in some circles, "’Honest Abe’ is increasingly becoming Racist Abe.” The list goes on. To these people, Lincoln is another white male oppressor to be canceled. He may have freed the slaves, they say, but he had ulterior motives and did plenty of other things wrong. As if emancipation is just another line on the resume that can be outweighed and not an immortal act of courage and historical importance. Perhaps those calling Lincoln a racist should read Lincoln’s first inaugural address. “One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended,” he said. “This is the only substantial dispute.” One doesn’t need to be conservative to recognize and call out the absurdity of what the woke progressives are doing these days. If someone nicknamed the Great Emancipator is cancelable, then who’s safe? No one from our nation’s past, that’s for sure. In 1962, one century after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the author and politician Clare Boothe Luce made a striking comment to President John F. Kennedy. “A great man,” she told him, “is one sentence.” Lincoln’s sentence, Luce continued, was simple yet powerful: “He preserved the union and freed the slaves.” No further elaboration is needed. Everyone knows who you’re talking about. Lincoln was a great leader with a remarkable life story. He was also without question the greatest commander in chief in American history, transforming a 16,000-man army spread across the continent at the beginning of the Civil War into a highly effective 2-million-man fighting force by the end. But ultimately, Lincoln’s courage and moral clarity are what have endured above all else. He truly believed in the principles of the Declaration of Independence and their incompatibility with slavery. Still, not good enough for the woke. How wonderful it must feel for these progressives to stand atop the mountain of history and morality, passing judgement on lesser men such as Lincoln. After all, how can the backward Lincoln compare to some upper middle-class kid majoring in gender studies at an elite California university? Lincoln may have freed the slaves, you see, but he wasn’t an anti-racist. So, he must be condemned as a villain, because today we have all the answers and are so much more enlightened. More from Aaron Kliegman: