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Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
Is
Not
the
American
Dream
of Equal
Opportunity
MICHAEL
J.
ILLUZZI
ABSTRACT
The
scholarship
on
the American
Dream
identifies
Lincoln
and
his
Whig forebears
as
the
first
ones
to popularize
the
concept
of
equality
of
opportunity,
but
a
phrase
cen-
tral
to this
interpretation-"race
of
life"-is
at
odds
with
this
narrative. Tracing
the
relations among Lincoln's
uses
of
"race
of
life" in
his
collected
works
and comparing
it
with
the
uses
in
historical newspapers,
I
argue
Lincoln
coopted
the
term
"race of
life,"
a
nonpartisan
term,
and
rejected
the
idea
of
competitive
equality of
opportunity
as
in-
sufficient.
Conflating Lincoln's
"race
of
life"
with
the competitive
equality
of
oppor-
tunity
central to
contemporary
conceptions of
the American
Dream
not
only
obscures
Lincoln's
novel
fusion of
republican and
liberal
elements
but
also ends
up
using the
authority
of
Lincoln
to
bolster
a
conception of equality
fundamentally at
odds
with
Lincoln's
own political career
and
thought.
Scholars
have
identified
Abraham
Lincoln
and
his
Whig
forebears
as
central
popularizers
of
the
concept
of
equal
opportunity and
the American
Dream.
I
argue
the
scholarship's
identification
of Lincoln
as
a
central
figure
in
the
popu-
larization
of
the
contemporary
meaning
of
equality
of
opportunity
is
anachro-
nistic.
Lincoln
may
have played
a
role
in
introducing
the
term
"the race
of
life"
into
political
discourse.
Nonetheless
he
coopted
the
term
"race
of
life"-a
non-
partisan
term
favored
by
evangelical
Protestants-and
rejected
the concept
of
competitive equality
of
opportunity (at
the center
of
contemporary
conceptions
of
the
American
Dream)
as
insufficient.
Unlike
competitive
equal
opportunity
that
calls
for
an
equal
opportunity
to
compete for
desirable
social
positions,
rail-
splitter
republicanism
maintained
that
fair
individualistic
competition
based on
Michael
J.
Illuzzi
assistant professor
of
political
science
at
Lesley
University,
29 Everett
St.,
Cambridge,
MA
02138
(milluzzi@lesley.edu).
The
author
thanks
George
Shulman,
Katherine
Gott, Christopher Calvert-Minor,
Giunia
Gatta,
Amit
Ron,
Daniela
Mansbach,
Anne
Manuel, and
the
anonymous
reviewers
and editor
of
American
Political
Thought
for
their
helpful
comments
and
criticisms.
American
Political
Thought:
A
Journal
of
Ideas,
Institutions,
and
Culture,
vol.
3
(Fall
2014).
2161-1580/2014/0302-0002$10.00.
©
2014
by
The
Jack
Miller
Center.
All
rights
reserved.
Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
*
229
merit
depended on
the
attachment
of
the
people
to
the
political
principles
of
the
Declaration
as
well
as
to
each
other.
1
Rail-splitter
republicanism
fused
the
competitive
individualism
of
a
race
with
an admonition
that
the
race
was to
be
run
fairly,
justly,
and
with
an
eye
to
fostering
the
common good.
In
the
first
section
of
this
paper,
I
demonstrate
that
Lincoln
understood
the
Declaration
of Independence
to
embody rail-splitter republicanism,
which
he
ultimately summarized
as
"the race
of
life." In
the
second section,
I
analyze
Lincoln's
use
of the
term
"free
labor"
and
compare
it
to
his
use
of the
"race
of
life."
In
the
third
section,
I
recount
Lincoln's
transformation
of
the
term
"race
of
life"
from
a
neutral,
nonpartisan
description
of
a
life's
journey
well
run
to
what
he
ultimately
labels
the leading
object
of
government for
which
the
Union fought
the
Civil
War.
Appropriations
of
Lincoln's
"race
of
life"
have
been
one-sided.
John
Schaar,
J.
R.
Pole,
Rogers
Smith,
and
Eric
Foner
all
identify
the Whig
party
and
Lincoln
in
particular
as
being
the
central
figures
in
popularizing
the
concept of equal
opportunity
as
a
"slogan"
and "party
political
logo"
(Schaar 1967,
237;
Pole
1978/1993,
177,150;
Foner
1995,
16;
Smith
1999,
250-51).
Likewise,
schol-
ars
of
the
American
Dream
have
anointed
Lincoln
the
Jesus
Christ
of the
concept
and
the
"prism
through
which
the
light
of the American
Dream
[of
equality
of
opportunity]
passed
to
become
a
purer,
broader
beam"
(Cullen
2003,
96,
100;
Jillson
2004,
99).
All
of
these
interpretations
rely,
at
least
in
part,
on
Lincoln's
use
of the
term
"race
of
life."
As
Eric
Foner-whose
work
served
as
one
key
source
for
much
of
this
literature-put
it:
"The
competitive
character
of
northen
society
was
aptly
summed
up
by
Lincoln,
when
he
spoke
of
the 'race
of
life'
in
the
1850's"
(1995,
14).
Both
Jim
Cullen's
and
Cal
Jillson's
histories of
the
American
Dream (quoted
above)
rely
on
Lincoln's
use
of "the
race
of
life"
in
his
1861
Address
to
Congress
as
the basis
of their
interpreta-
tion
of
Lincoln's centrality to this history.
James
G.
Randall's interpretation
of
Lincoln
as
a
liberal,
Isaac
Kramnick's
argument
that
Lincoln's
phrase
can
serve
as
the
paradigmatic
statement
of
the
late-eighteenth-century
competitive indi-
vidualism
characteristic
of the liberal
tradition,
and
Gabor Boritt's
argument
that
the
Civil
War
should
be
seen
as
"Lincoln's
War
for
the American
Dream"
all
rely heavily
on
Lincoln's
use
of
the
"race
of
life"
(Randall
1947/2005,
48-49;
Boritt
1974/1994,
99,
275-78;
Kramnick
1990, 15-17).2
Lowry's
(2013)
po-
1.
For
a
discussion
of
competitive
equality
of
opportunity,
see
Joseph
(1980,
398).
2.
Boritt makes
the 1861
statement
the centerpiece
of
his
argument
in the
final
chap.
on
the
content
of
the
American
Dream (1974/1994,
275-88).
Kramnick
(1990)
uses
the
term
"race
of
life"
17
times
in
Bourgeois Radicalism
because
it
captured
"the
psychology
of
the
modern
bourgeois
individual"
(7).
This
is
not
to say
that
Kramnick
believes
in
a
one-sided
liberal
US
political
history,
as
his
subsequent
work
portrays
a
fusion
of
elements
that
is
largely
consistent
with
Lincoln's rail-splitter republicanism
(see
Kramnick
1994).
230
*
American
Political
Thought
*
Fall
2014
lemic
on
Lincoln's American
Dream
uses
"race
of
life"
as
a
summary
of
Lincoln's
thought
that
he
equates
with
being
a "a
nation
of
aspiration"
(3).
Scott
Sandage's
History
of
Failure
in
America
likewise
employs
Lincoln's
uses
of
the
term
to
support
his
narrative
that
Lincoln was
central to
popularizing
the
entrepreneu-
rial
identity
that
he
sees
as
becoming
predominant
(2005,
218-25).
In
short,
a
conceptual
history of
the
term
"race
of
life"
is
central
to
interpretations and
misinterpretations of
Lincoln's
contribution
to the American
concepts
of
the
American
Dream
and
equality of
opportunity.
It
is
not
so
much
that
these
ap-
propriations
of
Lincoln
are
incorrect
(as
Lincoln
firmly
embraced entrepre-
neurial
capitalism)
as
these
appropriations
are
one-sided
and
have
lost
the
complexity
of
his
fusion
of
liberal
and
republican
elements.
1.
THE
DECLARATION
AS
RAIL-SPLITTER
REPUBLICANISM
A
conceptual
history
of
the
term
"race
of
life"
requires distinguishing concepts
and
terms.
Quentin
Skinner observes
that
"the surest
sign
that
a
society
has
entered
into
possession
of
a
new concept
is
that
a
new
vocabulary
will
be de-
veloped,
in
terms
of
which the
concept
can
then
be
publicly
articulated
and
discussed" (1978,
2:352).
I
argue
that
this
is
the
case
for
Lincoln's
"race
of
life."
Lincoln
used
the
term
to
express
a
fusion
of
liberal
and republican
ele-
ments. Skinner
notes
that
in
a
formative
period
terms
and
concepts
do
not
al-
ways
match.
There may
be
the concept
without
the term. The
literature
on
the
American
Dream,
for instance,
asserts
that
the
concept
of
equality
of
oppor-
tunity
is
present
in
Lincoln's
use
of
the
phrase
"equal
chance
in
the
race
of
life" even
though
Lincoln
never
uses
the
terms
"equal
opportunity"
or
"equality
of
opportunity."
There
are
also
occasions
when
the
term
is
used
although
the
relevant
concept
does
not
apply.
For instance,
the
term
"equal
opportunity"
was
used
in
eighteenth-century
US
legal cases
where
claimants
argued
they
lacked
an
equal
opportunity
to consider the terms
of
a
contract.
3
As
James
Farr
has
pointed
out,
what
conceptual
historians
are
looking
for
are
earlier
iterations
of
the
concept
"sharing
family
resemblances
with
contemporary
ones,"
and
stay-
ing
"attentive
to
what
their
authors
were
doing
in
using
term
and
conception,
in
the
contexts
and
as
part
of
the
traditions
in
which
they did so"
(2004,
10).
During
the
1850s,
both
Democrats and
Whigs
used the
phrase
"race
of
life"
to
refer
to
different
conceptions
of
what
a
life
journey
ought
to
be.
Working-class
3.
This
statement
arises
from newspapers
searches
of
the Early
American
Newspaper
index
provided
by
Readex.
I
read
through
all
the
newspaper
articles
with
the
terms "equal
opportunity" or
"equality
of
opportunity"
for
the
years
1755-1840.
Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
*
231
Democrats
emphasized
individual competition
and
upward
mobility,
while
Whigs
used the
term to
emphasize
that
in
one's
life's
journey
one
ought
to have
a
higher
purpose.
Lincoln's
new
form
of
republicanism
(what
I
am
labeling
rail-splitter
repub-
licanism)
has
four
characteristics
that
fused
these elements
together.
First,
the
Declaration's
statement of
principle-"all
men
are
created
equal"-required
that
rail
splitters
could
become
self-made
men
economically
and
politically inde-
pendent
so
that
their
identities
were
"voluntarily
chosen, conscious
construc-
tions"
(Howe
2009,
136).
Second,
Lincoln's
ideology
adopted
the
centerpiece
of
republicanism
that
held
that
people's
lives
took
on
significance
to the
extent
that
individuals
contributed
to the
maintenance
of
a
larger
universal,
which
Lincoln
identified
as
the
Declaration's
statement
that
"all
men
are
created
equal."
Third,
the
self-made
individual
in
the
Declaration
was
dependent on
the public
senti-
ments
of
others who
recognized
that
their
ability
to
be
self-made
entailed
more
than
a
mutual
recognition
of rights;
it
required
a
duty
to
maintain
the
attachment
of
the people
to
the principles
of
the
Declaration
and
to
each
other.
Fourth,
rail-
splitter
republicanism
required
a
political religion
because,
though
the
ideology
was
rational,
it
required
the
emotional
supports
of
people's
attachment
to the
Revolution
and
their
religion
to
recognize
that
their salvation depended
on
the
moral
health of
the
polity.
Lincoln
embraced
a
conception
of
self-ownership
that
has
since
lost
its
antebellum
associations
"as
an
expression
of
the
meaning
of
life,
and
ideal
in
which
making
money was incidental
to
self-fulfillment"
(Howe
2009,
136).
To
mid-nineteenth-century
Americans the
idea
of
the
self-made
man
was
"the
no-
tion
that
individuals
did
not
have
to
live
with
the
identity
to
which
they
had
been
born,
but
had
the
power to
redefine
themselves"
(156).
"What
distinguished
the
self-made
man
was
that
his
identity was
a
voluntarily
chosen, conscious
construction,
not
something
that
had
to
be
achieved
by
an
individual
in
isola-
tion"
(136).
Lincoln's
supporters
Richard
Oglesby
and
John Hanks
dramati-
cally
introduced
the
rail-splitter
image
in
the
1860
campaign when
they
had
two
fence
rails
carried
in
with
a
sign
attached
that
read:
"Abraham
Lincoln,
the
Rail
Candidate
for President
in
1860.
Two
rails
from
a
lot
of
three
thousand
made
in
1830
by
John Hanks
and
Abe
Lincoln."
According
to
an
eyewitness
account:
"A
fifteen-minute
demonstration
erupted during
which"
the
"[canvas]
roof
was literally cheered off
the
building"
(Plummer
2001,
42).
Lincoln
stood
up
attested
that
"he
built
a
cabin,
split
rails,
and
cultivated
a
small
farm"
(Lin-
coln 1953, 4:48).
Lincoln accepted
his
rail-splitter
image
as
an expression
of
this
conception
of
self-ownership.
He
argued
that
he
was
a
"living
witness"
to
the
Declaration's
promise
that
a
rail splitter
could
forge his
own
way
even
to
assume
the
highest
political
office
in the
country
(7:512).
In
a
speech
in
New
Haven
in
1860
he
noted:
"I
am
not
ashamed
to
confess
that
twenty
five
years
232
*
American
Political
Thought
*
Fall
2014
ago
I
was
a
hired
laborer,
mauling
rails,
at
work
on
a
flat-boat-just
what
might
happen
to
any
poor
man's
son!
[Applause.]
I
want
every
man
to
have
the
chance
...
in
which
he
can
better
his
condition"
(4:24). "The
Illinois
Rail
Splitter"
became
"a
popular
epithet"
for
Lincoln
(Splitter
1950,
351).
The
Dem-
ocrats' attack
on
the
rail-splitter
backfired
and augmented Lincoln's
image
as
a
man
of
common
origin
(Plummer
2001,
53).
The
campaign
had
popularized
an
image
central to Lincoln's
understanding
of the American
experiment
as
one
dedicated
to the
proposition
that
individuals had
the
power
(as
Lin-
coln
had) to
redefine
themselves
and
not
be
bound
to
the
identity
to
which
they
had
been
born.
I
adopt
the
adjective
"rail-splitter"
to describe
Lincoln's
re-
publicanism
rather
than
self-ownership
republicanism
because the
nineteenth-
century
idea of
a
self-made
man
has
lost
the
connotations
of
a
voluntarily
chosen, conscious
construction
of
identity
and
instead
is
now
increasingly used
to
refer
to
material
accumulation
(Howe
2009).4
The second
characteristic
of
rail-splitter
republicanism
is
a
conviction
that
lives
take
on
significance
to the
extent
that
we
contribute to
the
maintenance of
a
larger universal. Lincoln often
framed
his
arguments
in the language
of
repub-
licanism,
referring to the
Declaration's
principles
as
the
"republican
principle,"
"republican
cause,"
"the
true
republican
position,"
"our
republican
example,"
"republican
robe,"
and "our
republican
system."
5
Pocock's
exposition
of
clas-
sical
republicanism
helps
to
reveal
why
Lincoln's
usage
was
appropriate.
Pocock
explained
that
the
republic
represented
a
higher
ideal in
which
citizens
staked
their
future
as
moral
persons
on the
political
health
of
the
city,
"for
once
the
justice
which
was
part
of
Christian
virtue was
identified
with
the
distributive
4.
There
is
disagreement
over
Lincoln's
own relationship
with
his
rail-splitter
image.
Lowry
(2013,
109)
calls
it
a
"false
image."
Donald
notes
that
Lincoln
resented
the physical
chores
his
father
made
him do
as
a
child
and
that
Lincoln
did
not
like
the
diminutive
nickname "Abe,"
even
having
his
younger
law
partner
call
him "Mr. Lincoln"
while
he
called
Herndon
"Billy"
(Donald
1995,
33,
101).
Most
scholars
have
argued
that
Lincoln accepted
or
embraced
this
image
(Arnold
1885,
162-63;
Braden
1993,
104-15;
Plummer
2001;
Holzer
2004,
87-88;
Etulain
2010,
5).
I
use
the adjective
rail-splitter
not
only
because
I
find
the
latter
evidence
much more
persuasive,
but
also
because the
nineteenth-century conception
of
the self-made
man
was
central to
Lincoln's
republicanism
and
the
rail-splitter
image
captures
that
side
of
the
fusion
well
(Lincoln 1953,
1:8-9,
4:24).
5.
For "republican principle,"
see
Lincoln
(1953), 1:225,
3:345.
For
"republican
cause,"
see
2:482,
3:434.
For
"the
true
republican position,"
see
1:507.
For
"our
republican
example,"
see
2:255,
3:14.
For
"republican
robe,"
see
2:276.
For
"our
republican
system,"
see
2:401,
3:162,
6:262.
6.
There
have
been
many versions
of republicanism advanced
by
scholars
challenging
Pocock's
seminal
explication.
In
fact,
Rodgers
(1992)
history of
the
concept
suggests the
proliferation
of
meanings
have
rendered
the
term almost
meaningless.
I
use
Pocock's
defi-
nition
of republicanism
not
as
a
definitive
encapsulation
of
a
tradition
that
stretches
back to
Machiavellian
Italy,
but
rather
as
a
useful
illustration
of
a
key
element in
Lincoln's
thought
that
is
missing
in
appropriations
of Lincoln's
"race
of
life."
Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
*
233
justice
of
the polis,
salvation
became
in
some
degree
social, in
some
degree
de-
pendent
upon
others"
(Pocock 1975,
64,
75).
The
ability
to
"transmit"
the
prac-
tices
and institutions
that
would
support
the
principle
of
the
Declaration
was
"a
duty to
posterity"
(Lincoln 1953,
1:108).
To
protect your particular repub-
lic's
manifestation
of
the
universal imposed
a
duty
on
citizens
to
protect
it
against
corruption.
Nowhere
was
this clearer
than
in
Lincoln's
consistent
use
of
the
Declaration's
"all
men
are
created
equal"
as
an
expression
of
a
universal
common
good
de-
fined
centrally
by
the
presence
of
practices,
beliefs,
and
institutions
that
would
support
self-ownership
for
all
individuals.
When
pressed
in
debates
with
Ste-
phen Douglas
and
others
on
the
content
of
"all
men
are
created
equal,"
Lin-
coln
explained
the
inalienable
rights to
life,
liberty,
and
the
pursuit
of
happiness
as
having
an
equal
chance
to
become
a
self-made
man.
Over
and
over
again,
Lincoln
consistently
and
repeatedly
defined
the
equal
inalienable
right
to
life,
liberty,
and
the
pursuit
of
happiness
with
his
frequent
invocation
of
Genesis
3:19
("By
the
sweat
of
your
face
you shall
eat
bread";
Lincoln
1953,
2:405,
500,
520;
3:316,
249, 402,
479;
4:3;
7:368; 8:155,
333).
For instance,
in
a
speech
in Springfield in 1858
he
explained:
"My
declarations
upon
this
sub-
ject
of negro
slavery
may
be
misrepresented,
but
can
not
be
misunderstood.
I
have said
that
I
do
not understand
the
Declaration
to mean
that
all
men
were
created equal
in
all
respects.
. . .
in
the
right to
put
into
his
mouth
the
bread
that
his
own
hands
have
earned,
he
is
the
equal
of
every
other man,
white
or
black"
(2:520).
In
a
speech
in
Chicago
on
July
10,
1858,
he
explained
that
the
German,
Irish,
French,
and
Scandinavians
"look
through
that
old
Declaration
of
In-
dependence" and
see
an
"electric
cord
that
...
links
the
hearts
of
patriotic
and
liberty-loving
men."
Judge
Douglas's
declared
indifference
to
slavery
would
have
severed
this
cord
as
"this
argument
of
the
Judge
[Stephen
Douglas]
is
the
same
old serpent
that
says
you
work and
I
eat,
you toil
and
I
will
enjoy
the
fruits of
it"
and this
would "rub
out
the
sentiment
of liberty
in
the
country"
(Lincoln 1953,
2:499-500).
For Lincoln,
the
citizens
had
staked their
future
as
moral
persons
on the
political
health
of
the
city,
and
this
political
health
could
be
measured
by
the
extent
to
which
all
men
had
an equal
chance
for
the
nineteenth-century conception
of self-ownership
(2:407,
499).
7.
Lincoln
used
similar
formulations
several
times
in
his
debates
in
response
to
Stephen
Douglas's
race
baiting (Lincoln 1953,
2:405;
3:10,
249,
402).
Always the
consummate
rhetorician,
Lincoln
brings
the
humanity
of
the
black
man
to
life
(even
while
demeaning
him!)
by
highlighting
his
need
to eat bread
that
he
has made
with
his
own hands.
Lincoln's
tact
is
to
show
the
complete
breakdown
in
logic
of
asserting
that
someone
who
breathes,
eats,
and
works
like
the
rest
of
humanity
is
the
property
of
someone
else.
234
*
American
Political
Thought
*
Fall
2014
The
third
characteristic
of Lincoln's rail-splitter
republicanism
maintained
that
the
self-made
individual
in
the
Declaration
was
dependent
on
the
pub-
lic
sentiments
of others
who
recognized
that
their
ability
to have
an
"equal
chance" entailed
more
than
a
mutual
recognition
of
rights;
it
required
a
duty to
maintain
the
attachment
of the
people
to
the
principle
of the
Declaration
and
to
each
other.
Rail-splitter
republicanism
requires
not
a
retreat
within
to
consult
one's
intuition and
soul
(a
la
Emerson)
but
a
duty to
perform
one's
calling
as
well
as
a
simultaneous duty to
enter
into
the public
realm
and
disabuse people
of
harmful
public
sentiments
that
endanger
the
founding
principles
of the
Declaration.
8 Zuckert's
"moral"
natural
rights
liberalism
captures
some
facets
of Lincoln's
understanding
of
the
Declaration.
For
Zuckert,
the
Declaration
of
Independence declared
the
practical
political
truth that
each
man
has
a
right
to
be
free
from
subjection
to
the
authority
of
any
other
human
being
(Zuckert
1996,
18).
Natural
rights
may
derive
from
the
nature
of
human
drives
for
se-
curity,
but
government
can
only
secure
them
when
the
people's opinions
have
been
shaped
to
recognize
that
only
the
mutual
recognition
of
each
other's
rights
can
help
people
secure
their
own
personal
rights
and
pursue
their
own
interests
(76).
Yet
Zuckert
sees
the
right to
life,
liberty,
and
the
pursuit
of
happiness
declared
by
the
Declaration
as
having to
be
defined
negatively
without
atten-
dant
duties
(78-85).
Lincoln,
it
appears to
me,
goes
further. For
Lincoln,
mu-
tual
recognition
of
rights was
dependent
on "cultivating the
spirit
that
ani-
mated
our
fathers
. . .
cherishing
that
fraternal
feeling
which
has
so
long
characterized
us
as
a
nation"
(Lincoln 1953,
4:241).
The
Declaration
is
about
a
"spirit"
or
a
pervading
ethos
in
which
all
men have
a
"love
of
liberty" and
recognize
that
their
individual
liberty
depends
upon
fulfilling
their
duty
to
up-
hold
an
attachment
to
the
principles
of
the
Declaration
and
an
attachment
to
each
other
(3:95).
The spirit
is
the
glue
that
binds
the
people
to
each
other
and
the
polity.
Without
the
"fraternal
feeling"
there
is
no
guarantee
that
peo-
ple
will
respect each
others'
rights,
that
they
will
follow
even
the
best laws,
nor
that
they
will
perpetuate
the practices
that
will
ensure
that
all
members
of
the
polity
will
have
an
equal
chance to
exercise
their
liberties
in
the
next
generation.
Lincoln's
rail-splitter republicanism
rested on
a
belief
that
the
people
would
recognize
that
their
souls
depended
on
the
public
sentiments of
their
neigh-
bors.
Lincoln
argued
in
his
first
debate
with
Douglas
in
1858:
"In
this
and
like
communities, public sentiment
is
everything.
With
public sentiment,
nothing
can
fail;
without
it
nothing
can
succeed.
Consequently
he
who
moulds
public
sentiment
goes
deeper
than
he
who
enacts
statutes
or
pronounces
decisions"
(Lincoln 1953,
3:27).
Molding
public sentiment and
practices
was
the chief
8.
For an
interpretation
of
Lincoln
as
a
romantic,
see
Winger
(2001,
69).
Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
*
235
task
of
maintaining
a
republic.
As
a
result,
a
question
arose:
how
can
you
mo-
tivate people
to
mold
the
public
sentiments
and
cultivate the
fraternal
feeling
in
the
face
of
two
countervailing
forces:
(1)
a
widening
pool
of increasingly
diverse
political
participants
and
(2)
the increasing pull of the
pursuit
of
ma-
terial
success
in
an
expanding
market
economy?
9
In
his
Lyceum
Address
(1838),
Lincoln
answered
this
question
by
calling
for
a
"political
religion"-the
fourth
characteristic
of
rail-splitter
republicanism-
that
would
link
ambition with duty and
social
mobility
with
self-sacrifice.
Lin-
coln argued:
"Let
reverence
for
the laws
...
become
the
political
religion
of
the
nation;
and
let
the old
and
the
young
.
..sacrifice
unceasingly
upon
its
altars"
(Lincoln
1953,
1:112).
Lincoln
argued
that
the
"strongest
bulwark
of
any
Government, and
particularly
of
those
constituted
like
ours"
is
the
"attachment
of
the
People"
(1:111).
Without
this
attachment,
people
would
pursue their
group's
particular
interests
at
the
expense
of the
polity and
the
republic
based
on
consent
would
become
one
based
on
force
and subjugation. Short-term
in-
terests
will
invariably
create
incentives
for people
to
sacrifice
the
rights of
others
for
their own gain
(Jaffa
1969,
59).
To
induce the
sacrifices
necessary
for
pres-
ervation
of
the
attachment
of
the people
to
the
Declaration and
to each
other
required
"an
adherence
to
the
rational
principle
on
non-rational
grounds-
habituation
from
earliest
youth,
frequent
repetition,
association of
the
appeal
for
obedience
with
the
most
emotion-charged
attachment
the American peo-
ple
possessed:
Christianity and
the
Revolution"
(Zuckert
2005,
353).
Lincoln
believed
the only
way
to
secure
freedom
in the
long
term
was
to
fuse
the in-
dividualist
ambition
of
the
conception of
a
self-made
man
with
concern for
the
attachment
of
the
people
to each
other and
the
polity.
While
my
concept
of
rail-splitter republicanism
is
closest
to
Greenstone
(1993)
and
Terchek's
(1997)
use
of
"reform
liberalism"
and
the "Lincoln
per-
suasion,"
I
do
not
think
the
contrast
between
"reform
liberalism"
and
"humanist
liberalism"
captures
Lincoln
as well
as
the
term
"rail-splitter
republicanism."
First,
Greenstone
defines
"reform
liberalism"
as
having
a
"moral
imperative to
develop
one's
own
faculties
and to
assist
others
in
doing
so,"
and
this
leaves
the
role
of
labor
and
the conception of
the
self-made
man rather
ambiguous.
Second,
by
attempting
to
squeeze
Lincoln
out
of
the
category
of
possessive
individualist
(what
they
call
"humanist
liberals")
and
into the
category
of
a
reform
liberal,
Greenstone
and
Terchek
define
duty
in
opposition
to
the
self-made-man
con-
cept
that
Lincoln
argued was central
to
the
Declaration's
"all
men
are
created
equal."
Part of
the
"cold,
calculating
reason"
that
could bring
people
to the
''reverence for
the
laws"
that
Lincoln
discussed
in
the
Lyceum
Address
had
to
be
an
appreciation
for
the
role
ambition
and
self-interest
played in American
9.
For
a
discussion
of
the
era
as
an
age
of
individualism,
see
Kohl
(1989).
236
*
American
Political
Thought
*
Fall
2014
practices
and
beliefs
(Lincoln 1953, 1:12,
15).
In
contrast
to
the
distinction
drawn
by
Greenstone
and
Terchek
between
"republican fragments"
and
posses-
sive
individualist
liberalism,
Lincoln
argued
these
elements were
complementary
(Terchek
1997,224).
Republicanism
and
having
an
equal
chance
were
necessary
bedfellows,
and
in the American
context
of
the
Declaration
and
its
subsequent
history
the principles
of
social
mobility, equal
rights,
and
duty
to
the
republic
were
of
one
cloth.
In
the early
republic,
Lincoln
explained
in the
Lyceum
Address,
the
United
States
succeeded
in securing
a
"political
religion"
because
ambition
and talent and
pursuit
of distinction
aligned
with
keeping
a
free
state
(Lincoln
1953,
1:112).
The
founders
"all
sought
celebrity
and
fame,
and distinction"
"in
the
success
of
that
experiment."
"If
they
succeeded,
they were to
be
immortal-
ized;
.
..
to
be
revered
and
sung,
and
toasted
through
all
time"
(1:113).
While
Lincoln
conceded
in the Lyceum Address
that
the lure
of
greatness
lay
in
the
creation
and
not
the
continued
maintenance
of
the American
experiment,
he
also
warned
that
the
biggest
danger
to
the
perpetuation
of
US
institutions
was
people
failing
to
see
the
connection
of
reverence
for
the
laws
to
their
personal
economic
and
social
interests
(1:111).
The
failure
to
connect
individual
self-
ownership
with
the
larger
project of
republicanism
would
imperil
the
repub-
lic
(1:111).
Lincoln
faced
the
problem
of
conveying the
four
interrelated
facets
of
his
rail-
splitter
republicanism
in
a
way
that
would
quickly
capture
his
audience
and
still
convey
the complexities
of
his
ideas.
His
use
of
"race
of
life"
embodied
all
four
characteristics simultaneously.
First,
the
race
of
life
metaphor
conveyed
the
idea
that
people
could
voluntarily construct
their
own
identities.
Second,
from
its
widespread
use
among
evangelicals
the
phrase
"race
of
life"
already
had
the
association
of
a
life
journey
connected
to
a
larger universal;
people's
lives
take
significance
in
their
honorably
fulfilling
their vocation
and
role
in
something
larger
than
themselves.
Third,
the
phrase
"race
of
life"
did
more
than
simply
admit
the
need
for
the
mutual
recognition of
rights
(respecting
other's
equal
chance).
Religious
groups
frequently
used the
term
to
invoke
people's
duty
to
live
their
life
journey according
to
higher
morals,
which
Lincoln
argued
were em-
bodied
in
the
Declaration's
"all
men
are
created
equal."
Fourth,
associating
the
race
of
life
as
the
"birthright"
bequeathed
by
the
founding
fathers,
Lincoln used
the
phrase
as
a
political
religion
that
taught
that
people's individual
salvations
as
well
as
their long-term
interests
depended
upon
the
moral
health of
the
polity.
2. LINCOLN'S
USES
OF "FREE
LABOR"
AND
THE
"RACE
OF
LIFE"
Lincoln's
gradual
adoption
of
the "race
of
life"
reflected his belief
in
main-
taining
economic independence
without
reducing
this
to
the
free
pursuit
of
Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
*
237
economic interests.
Unlike "race
of
life,"
the
term
"free
labor"
was
in
popular
political
use
but
did
not
fully
capture
the
rail-splitter republicanism
of
Lin-
coln's
thought.
Free
labor
served
to
evoke
the
ideal
of
the
nineteenth-century
conception
of the
self-made
man
(the
first
characteristic
of
rail-splitter
re-
publicanism),
but
it
did
not
connote
that
economic
independence
was inex-
tricably linked
with
the
maintenance
of the
political
sentiments
and
with
the
"fraternal
feeling"
Lincoln
talked
about
in
the
Lyceum
Address
(the
third
char-
acteristic
of
rail-splitter republicanism).
Lincoln's
gradual
introduction
of the
term
"race
of
life"
in
his
speeches
reflects
his
evolving
understanding
of
how
to
fuse
the
elements
of
self-
ownership
with
a
higher
purpose.
While
campaigning
hard
for
John
C.
Fremont's
1856
Republican Party
bid
for president,
Lincoln echoed
Fremont's
stump
speech
that
"vindicated the
cause
of
free
labor,
'that
national
capital,'
in
the language of
Col.
Fremont,
'which
constitutes
the
real
wealth
of
this
great
country,
and
creates
that
intelligent
power
in
the
masses
alone
to
be
relied
on
as
the
bulwark
of
free
institutions'"
(Lincoln
1953,
2:379).
Lincoln
portrayed
free
labor
as
an
educating
force
empowering
citizens,
securing
free
institutions,
and
enabling
those
citizens
to
experience self-ownership.
Lincoln
also
began
to
articulate
free
labor
as
a
larger
concept
that
represented
the
"true
ends
of
Government"
(2:379),
but
this earlier
formulation
falls
short
of
expressing the
republican
idea
that
citizens
staked
their
future
as
moral
per-
sons
on the
political
health
of
the
city.
What
Lincoln adds
to
this
in
later
statements
was
the
idea
of the
Declaration
as
connected to
a
larger
project.
In
his
address
before the
Wisconsin state
agricultural
society
on
Septem-
ber
30,
1859, Lincoln
gave his
most sustained
analysis of
free
labor.
Lincoln
defined
free
labor
in
opposition
to
the "mudsill
theory."
South
Carolina
Senator James
Hammond
defined the
mudsill
theory
in
a
speech
to
the
US
Senate
in
1858:
"In
all
social
systems
there
must
be
a
class
to
do
the menial
duties,
to
perform
the
drudgery
of
life.
That
is,
a
class
requiring
but
a
low
order
of
intellect
and
but
little
skill. . . .
Such
a
class
you
must
have,
or you
would
not
have
that
other
class
which
leads
to progress,
civilization,
and
refinement"
(New
York
Herald-Tribune
1858,
6).
In
Lincoln's
rejection of the
mudsill
theory
he
again
relied
on
Genesis 3:19:
"The
old
general rule was
that
educated
people
did
not
perform
manual
labor.
They
managed
to
eat their
bread,
leaving
the
toil
of
producing
it
to
the
uneducated"
(Lincoln
1953,
3:479).
For
Lincoln,
nobody
was
born
to
be
the
mudsill
for
someone
else's
self-ownership. Lincoln
begins
with
a
description
of
free
labor
that
parallels
his
Fremont explanation:
"The
prudent,
penniless
beginner
in
the
world, labors
for
wages awhile,
saves
a
surplus
with
which
to
buy
tools
or
land,
for
him-
self;
then labors
on
his
own
account
another
while,
and at
length
hires an-
other
new beginner
to
help
him.
This
.. .is
free
labor-the
just
and
generous,
238
*
American
Political
Thought
*
Fall
2014
and
prosperous
system."
Then
anticipating
his
"race
of
life"
formulations,
Lin-
coln
continued:
"
[free
labor] opens the way
for
all-gives
hope
to
all,
and
energy,
and
progress, and
improvement
of
condition
to all"
(Lincoln
1953,
3:479).
Though
not
connecting
this explicitly
with
the
Declaration's
"all
men
are
created
equal
"as
he
does in
his
later
invocations
of the
"race
of
life,"
the
sentiment
that
this
conception
of
self-ownership
should
be
open
to
all
and
not
confined to
a
small
educated
elite
forms
the
center
of
his
criticism
of
the
mudsill
theory.
Yet,
unlike
the
speech
on behalf
of
Fremont,
Lincoln
increasingly discussed
labor
and
its
role
in
self-ownership
not
as
a
right
but
also
a
duty.
Why
a
duty?
First,
Lincoln explained,
"No
country
can
sustain,
in
idleness,
more
than
a
small
percentage
of
its
numbers.
The
great
majority must
labor
at
something
pro-
ductive"
(Lincoln 1953,
3:479).
Second,
in
contrast
to
classical
republicanism
that
pictured
man
as
a
political
animal,
Lincoln
portrays
man
as
a
political
and
economic
animal
with
both
being
necessary
for
self-ownership.
By
making
the
universal
include
economic
practice, Lincoln
alters
the
classical
republicanism
explained
by
Pocock
but
retains
the
republican
view
that
lives
take
on
signifi-
cance
to
the
extent
that
we
contribute
to
a
larger universal.
Lincoln
explained:
"Free
Labor
argues
that,
as
the
Author
of
man
makes
every
individual
with
one
head and
one
pair
of
hands,
it
was
probably
intended
that
heads
and
hands
should co-operate
as
friends;
and
that
that
particular
head,
should
direct
and
control
that
particular pair
of
hands..
..
that
each
head
is
the
natural
guardian,
director,
and
protector
of
the
hands
and
mouth
inseparably
connected with
it;
and
that
being
so,
every
head
should
be
cultivated,
and
improved,
by
whatever
will
add
to
its
capacity
for
performing
its
charge"
(3:479-80).
For
Lincoln,
individuals
had
to
take
up
their
obligation
(because
made
by
"the
Author")
to engage in
"cultivated
thought"
and
use
this
in
what
Lincoln
calls
"thorough
work"-which
he
defines
in
opposition
to
"that
careless,
half
performed,
slovenly
work"
(Lincoln 1953,
3:481).
Without
connecting
free
labor
to
the
principle
in the
Declaration,
Lincoln
left
the
connection
between the
nation's
origins
and
the
persistence
of
free
labor
unclear
in the
speech
to the
Wisconsin
state
agricultural
society.
Lincoln gestured
at
the end
of
the
speech
to
this
ambiguity when
he
cautioned
that
the
US
pro-
tection
of
free
labor
could
be
an
ephemeral
blessing
that
might
pass away,
but
he
says:
"And
yet
let
us
hope
it
is
not
quite
true.
Let
us
hope,
rather,
that
by
the
best
cultivation of
the physical
world,
beneath
and
around
us;
and
then
intel-
lectual
and
moral
world
within
us,
we shall secure
an
individual,
social,
and
po-
litical
prosperity and
happiness, whose
course
shall
be
onward
and
upward,
and
which,
while
the
earth
endures,
shall
not
pass
away"
(Lincoln
1953,
3:482).
The
phrase
"while
the
earth endures"
suggests
that
the
United
States
is
unique
in
its
demonstration
of this
principle,
yet
it
left
unclear
how
the
founders
secured
individual,
social,
and
political
prosperity.
In
the
Wisconsin
speech,
Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
*
239
Lincoln
does
not
make
it
clear
how
free
labor
connects
with
the
attachment
of
the
people
to the
Declaration and
to
each
other
that
in
the
lyceum
speech
he
explained
were
the
"strongest
bulwark
of
any
Government,
and particularly
of
those
constituted
like
ours."
Beginning
in 1860,
Lincoln
used
"free
labor"
less
often.
The
term
is
found
in
nine
speeches
(or
notes for
them)
between
1856
and
March
6,
1860,
but
after
the
March
New
Haven
speech
it
is
only
found
three
more
times
in
his
collected
works
(Lincoln 1953,
2:364,
379,
390;
3:462,
469,
479-80,
487;
4:3-12).10
In
these
subsequent
uses,
absent
is
the
suggestion
that
free
labor
represents
a
larger
ideal.
Instead,
these
later
uses
refer
to the
actual
working conditions
on
newly
freed
plantations,
such
as
in
Lincoln's
executive
order
of
September
1864 where
he
prohibited
any
officer
from
interfering
"with
the
transportation
of
supplies
to, or
products
from,
any
plantation
worked
by
free
labor" (8:30-31;
see
also
7:145,
217).
On
the
other
hand,
except
for
his
use
of
"race
of
life"
in
his
1852
eulogy
of
Henry
Clay,
Lincoln's
use
of
the race
of
life
terminology
begins
in 1860
with
the
speech
at
New Haven.
A
comparison
of
his
uses
of
"free
labor"
and
"race
of
life"
suggests
how
Lincoln's
formulations
of
the
two
terms
differed.
In
a
September
1859
speech
in
Cincinnati
he
stated,
"Free
labor
has
the
inspiration
of
hope;
pure
slavery
has
no
hope"
(Lincoln
1953, 3:462).
In
this
quote,
he
attempted to
link
the
self-interest
of
the
Northern
laborer
directly
to
a
higher
ideal
but
expressed this
with
the
vague label
of
"hope."
If
hope meant
simply
the
ability
to
pursue
one's
interests,
as
Winger
points out,
"it
is
not
immediately
clear
how
that
excluded
the
right
to
rise
to
the
status
of
slave-owner" (Winger
2001,
59).
In
his
New Haven
speech
from
March
1860, Lincoln
explained
the
connection
between
self-interest
and
a
higher
ideal
with
a
bit
more
specificity.
In
a
statement
with
echoes
of
his
Lyceum
Address,
he asserted:
"When
one
starts
poor,
as
most
do
in the race
of
life,
free
society
is
such
that
he
knows
he
can
better
his
condition;
he
knows
that
there
is
no
fixed
condition
of
labor,
for
his
whole
life"
(Lincoln 1953,
4:24-25;
italics
added).
Only
in
a
free
society-one
that
embraces
the
interdependence
of
the
individual
and
government
and
rejects
rigid
and
fixed
hierarchy-will
one
believe
that
he
can
better
his
condition.
3.
LINCOLN'S
APPROPRIATION
OF
THE
"RACE
OF
LIFE"
From
the
vantage
point
of
2014,
readers
are likely
to
see
Lincoln's
use
of the
"race
of
life"
as
a
liberal
statement
of
competitive
individualism,
but
it
was
the
10.
In
addition
to
these
nine utterances,
two
other
descriptions
of
speeches-the
speech
at
Dayton
and
his
second
speech
at
Leavenworth,
Kansas-contained
the
term,
but
since
they
were
journalists'
descriptions
they
do
not
preserve
Lincoln's exact
words
(Lincoln 1953,
3:437,
503).
240
*
American
Political
Thought
*
Fall
2014
cultural
connotations
of
duty
and
obligation
to
the
polity
that
made the
term
politically
appealing for
Lincoln.
Lincoln's
use
of the
"race
of
life,"
therefore,
is
not
comprehensible to
us
without
a
nuanced
analysis
of
the
discourse
of
Lincoln's
contemporary
allies
and
opponents
as
well
as
of
Lincoln's
audience
and
the
common
culture
in
1850s and
1860s
America.
Analyzing
the culture
in
which
the
phrase
"race
of
life"
was
embedded
reveals
why
Lincoln's
ap-
propriation
and
repurposing
of
it
was
remarkable.
He
took
an apolitical term,
infused
it
with
the
positive
connotations
of the
Declaration and invocation
of
the
founders,
and
emphasized
that
assuring
all
an equal
chance
in
their
life
journey required
the
attachment
of
the
people
to
each
other
and
to
these
political
principles.
Lincoln's
introduction
of
the
"race
of
life"
was
politically
and
philosophically
important.
Politically, Lincoln
faced
a
seemingly
intractable problem
of
forging to-
gether
contradictory
factions
into
a
united
Republican
party
in 1860.
On
the
one
hand,
Lincoln
needed the
support
of the
former
Whigs.
According
to
Gienapp,
"The
most
important
cause
of the
Republican
defeat
[in
the
1856
Presidential
election]
.
..
was
the
party's
failure
to
win
greater
support
from
conservative Whigs
and
the
nativist Know
Nothings"
(Gienapp
1987,
146).
In
effect,
the
Republican
party's
appeal
to
the
radical abolitionists
that
made up
the
former
Liberty
Party
and
elements
of
the
Free
Soil
Party
had
alienated
the
more
conservative Whigs
and
nativist Know
Nothings and
motivated them
to
run
their
own candidates
or
stay
at home
during
the
elections. The
tried
and
true
approach
to appealing
to these
conservative Whigs
was
moral
appeals,
for
as
Howe
explained:
"moral
appeals
were
the
Whigs'
substitute
for
party
loyalty"
(Howe
1979,
32).
The
Whigs could
afford
to
be
"the
more
homog-
eneous
party
because
they
drew
upon
the
most powerful
single
culture
in the
society,
evangelical
Protestantism"
(35).
Yet
Whigs
united
their
ranks
through
exclusion of
those
outside
this
culture.
"The
Whig
party's
electoral
campaigns
formed
part
of
a
cultural
struggle
to
impose
on
the
United
States
the
stan-
dards
of
morality
we
usually
term Victorian.
They
were
standards
of
self-
control
and restraint,
which dovetailed
well
with
the economic
program
of
the
party,
for they
emphasized
thrift,
sobriety,
and
public
responsibility"
(33).
Yet,
in
1860, Lincoln could
not court
the conservative Whigs
and
nativist Know-
Nothings
without
simultaneously alienating
working
class
Democrats,
in-
cluding
German
and
Irish
immigrants.
As
Howe
also
points
out,
"The
truth
is
that
the
Republicans
needed
most
Northern
ex-Whigs
plus
a
critical
minority
of
ex-Democrats"
(292).11
Lincoln avoided
Victorian
moral
appeals
to duty
11.
I
find
Howe
(1979)
more persuasive
on
the
composition
of
the
new
Republican
coalition
than
Sean
Wilentz
(2005),
who
describes the
new
Republican
Party
as
a
sort
of
rebirth
of
the Jeffersonian
Democratic Republican
Party
with
less
racism (Wilentz
784,
791,
Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
*
241
and
obligation
because
they
carried
divisive
religious
messages
that
would
have
alienated
some
working-class
Democrats. Democrats
had
always
resented
and
resisted
the
moral
imperialism
of
evangelical
Protestantism
as
infringe-
ments
on their
own
(morally
inferior)
ways
of
life,
which the
opposition
alleged
included
drinking,
wife
beating,
avoiding
Sunday school
and
religious revivals,
and
so
forth.
12
While
I
will
explain why Lincoln's
deployment
of the
phrase
"race
of
life"
mitigated
these
tensions,
his
use
was
not
mere
political
strategy, however
bril-
liant.
It
was
true
leadership.
To
the
Northern
working-class
Democrat,
he
ar-
gued
the social
mobility
at
the
center
of
free
soil
ideology
required
a
notion
of
duty
and
a
form
of virtue
defined
by
thrift,
sobriety,
and
public responsibility.
To
the
former
Whigs
and
nativists
his
formulations
suggested
that
the
deni-
gration
of
manual labor and
their
moral
imperialism
contradicted
their
pro-
claimed
reverence
for
the
political
principles
of
the
country
that
explicitly
rec-
ognized the
equal
dignity
of
each
person.
In
a
letter
to
Joshua
Speed,
Lincoln
explained
that
this
would
be
a
slippery
slope
to tyranny:
"As
a
nation,
we
began
by
declaring
that
'all
men
are
created
equal.'
We
now
practically
read
it
'all
men
are
created equal,
except
negroes.'
When
the
Know-Nothings
get
con-
trol,
it will
read
'all
men
are
created equal,
except
negroes,
and
foreigners,
and
catholics.'
When
it
comes
to
this
I
should
prefer
emigrating
to
some
country
where
they
make
no
pretence of
loving
liberty"
(Lincoln 1958, 2:323).
Lincoln's
use
of
the "race
of life"
also
reflected his
rail-splitter
republican
economics. Lincoln,
a
former
Whig
himself,
was
an
enthusiastic
supporter
of
Clay's
"American
System"
and
its
provision
for
government
aid
to
internal
improvements.
Yet,
unlike
some
other
Whigs
who
denigrated
manual
labor
and
the
working
class,
Lincoln made
work
central
to
his
political
career.
His
fusion
of
republican
and
liberal
elements
in
his
rail-splitter republican
eco-
nomic
position
explains
his
support
for
policies
of
both
Democrats
and
Whigs.
In
the end, the
Republican Party managed
to
keep the
Whigs
in
the fold
while
winning
over
a
pivotal
minority
of
working
class
Northerners
through
sup-
porting
policies such
as
Homestead
Act
and
protective
tariff
(Howe
1979,
277).
Lincoln's
ability
to
appeal
to
both
sides
rested
partially
on
an
anachro-
nistic
assumption.
Lincoln
believed
that
working
for
a
wage
for
someone
else
for one's
life
would
be
a
denial of
freedom
and
amount
to
what
was
called in
793).
The
Republican
Party
was
more
a
fusion
than
a
reversion
or
purification.
Furthermore,
Northern
Democrats
were
often
more
racist
than
former
Whigs,
which
is
why
Douglas's
race-
baiting
appeals
captured
more
Democrats
than
Lincoln's
new
Republican
Party
in the
1860
election.
The
new
Republican
Party
attracted
a
majority
of former
Whigs
and
a
smaller
but
still
important
number
of
Northern
Democrats (Howe
1979,
292;
Gienapp
1987,
416,
434).
12.
For
a
fine-grained analysis
of
Lincoln's
support
among
various
religious
groups,
see
Carwardine
(1997),
49.
242
*
American
Political
Thought
*
Fall
2014
popular
discourse
"wage
slavery." Lincoln
asserted
that
anyone
who
worked
hard
could
become
his
own owner and
that
in
1859
the wage system "does
not
embrace
more
than
one-eighth of the
labor
system
of the
country,"
which
as
Foner
(1995)
has
pointed out,
"was
surely
in
error"
(as
David
Montgomery
estimates the
number
being
closer
to 60%;
32).
This
flawed
assumption
al-
lowed
Lincoln
to
assert
that
free
labor
could
secure
not
only
continuous
so-
cial
mobility for
everyone
but
also
economic independence
for
everyone
(see
Winger
2001).
Despite
these
limitations
in
economic
understanding,
Lincoln's
policy
was
politically astute.
Analyzing
the
differences
between
Lincoln's
use
of
"race
of
life"
with
the
uses
of the
time
period
illuminates Lincoln's inno-
vative fusing
of the
traditions
of
individual
striving
so
central
to
Democratic
ideology
with
the tenets of
duty and
the
common good
central to Whig
ide-
ology.
13
On
the
one
hand,
the race
of
life
was
a
competitive
metaphor-appealing
to
working
class
Democrats,
including
Irish
and
German
immigrants.
These
Democrats
were
more
likely
to
uncritically
adopt
the
phrase
"race
of
life"
to
praise
an
individual's
success
and
emphasize
this
individualistic
striving
side
of
the term.
For instance,
the
New York
Irish American
Weekly
published
several
articles
discussing struggles
and
successes
of
Irish
immigrants
in
the
race
of
life.
John
Hennessey
reported:
"I
came
with
my
children
to
this
land
of
free-
dom, where
industry
is
encouraged
and
intelligence
is
appreciated.
I
started
them
in
the
race
of
life
here."
1 4
Another
article
recounts
that
the
immigrant
Mr.
M'Cunn
was
so
wealthy
that
"it
was
not
in
their
[his
guests']
power to
confer
on
him
any very
material
honor"
but
"he
was
sure
he
did
value
that
expression
of
kind
feeling
on the
part
of
his
old
schoolfellows,
when,
after
many
a
struggle
in
the
race
of
life,
and
after
having
overcome
difficulties
which
few
other
men
could
surmount,
he
came
back
to
his
native
land."
1 5 In
a
third
article
from
the
same
paper,
the
author
explained:
"I
belong
to
that
class
of
Irishmen
who must
rely
on
their own
efforts,
and
expect no favors
from
the
13.
The analysis
in the
following three
paragraphs
is
based in
large
part
on
a
search
of
Readex's
Early
American
Newspaper Database.
I
searched
for
"race
of
life"
for
the years
1856-61.
The
database
retrieved 109 articles
that
used
the
phrase,
with
more
than
half
of
these
being
duplicated
articles
appearing
in
more
than
one
newspaper
(a
common
practice
in
the
industry
at
the
time).
In
all,
I
analyzed
41
unique
newspaper
articles.
A
majority
of
them
(24
of
41)
put
an
emphasis
on
the
race
of
life's
requiring
a
duty
to
a
higher
purpose or
critiquing
those
who
viewed
the
race
of
life
too
materialistically.
Of
these,
eight articles
explicitly
identified religious
leaders
as
the
author
or
subject
of
the
statement.
About
a
quarter
of
the
articles
(10
of
41) reflected
the
Democratic
embrace
of
materialistic striving.
The
other
17%
articles
used
the
"race
of
life"
as
a
simple
stand
in
for
a
life's
journey
without
any
judgment.
14.
"Presentation
to
John
Hennessy"
(Irish
American
Weekly
1861b,
2).
15.
"Dinner
to
J.
H.
M'Cunn,
Esq."
(Irish
American
Weekly
1856,
4).
Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
*
243
world
in
the
race
of
life."
1"
Lincoln
borrowed
from
these
uses,
but
as
I
will
explain
in
later examples,
he
fused
the competitive
individualism
of
a
race
with
a
warning
that
the
race
would
become
corrupt
without
an accompanying
sense
of duty.
A
true
meritocracy
required
people
to
maintain
a
type
of virtue
that
included prudence,
hard work
(what
Lincoln
called
"thorough
work"
in
his
1859
Wisconsin
address),
and taking
responsibility to
support
the polity.
If
self-interested avarice was
left
unchecked,
the
prudent
would
lose
in
the
race
and
there
would
increasingly
arise
the
incentive
to
achieve
success
through
cheating,
force,
or
fraud. For
this
reason,
Lincoln's
usage
differed in
emphasis
from
these
uses.
On
the
other
hand,
Lincoln
combined
this emphasis
on
individualistic com-
petition
with
the
connotations
of
duty
and
honor
present
in
the three varia-
tions
of
usage
by
evangelical
Protestant
groups.
First,
a
common
use
of
the
phrase
"a
race
of life"
by
these
groups
was
to
insist
that
a
person had
a
duty
to
live
well
or
honorably, and
to
avoid
single-minded
materialism. For
exam-
ple,
Carothers,
a
Presbyterian
minister,
was
reported
by
a
Washington,
DC,
newspaper
to
have
warned
that
"living
fast"
in
"the race
of
life"
that
"has
be-
come
intense"
will
bring
"wear
and
tear
to
the
nervous
system
...
in
every
department
of
life!"
1 7
George
D.
Prentice,
newspaper editor
and
supporter
of
both
Whigs
and Know-Nothings,
argued
in
a
New
York
paper: "the
Bible
says
that
'the
race
is
not
always
to
the
swift'
and
our young men
should
bear in
mind
that
the
race
of
life
is
seldom
to
the
'fast'"
(Prentice
1860,
3).
The
Boston
Re-
corder
printed
a
Puritan
morning
prayer
that
went: "We
are
but
weak to
run
the
race
of
life,
/
0,
gird
us
with thy
strength
that
we
may
win
/
We
are
but
mortal-fit
us for
the
strife,
/
And
give
the
victory
o'er
death
and
sin!"
(Boston
Recorder
1858,
70).
Second,
many
of the Whig
uses
of the
"race
of
life"
implied
that
believers
had
a
duty to
serve
God
in
the
race
of
life.
For
instance,
the
Baptist
minister
George
R.
Darrow
preached:
"Said
Paul,'I
keep
under
my
body,'
employing
its
members
'as
instruments
of
righteousness,'
and
in
allusion
to
the
ancient
competitors
in
the race,
he
adds,
'this
they do
that
they
may
obtain
a
corruptible
crown-we
an
incorruptible
one.'
To
'so
run
as
to
obtain'
in
the
race
of
life
is
to
be
familiar
with
the
toil
and
fatigue
of
the
journey.""
With
the
death of
Dr. Dimmick,
pastor
of
the
North
Trinitarian
Congregational
Church,
the
Boston Recorder
eulogized:
"we
seem
to
see
him
now,
his
countenance,
his
eye,
his
manly person,
as
we
have
seen
him
so
many
times,
and our
thought
of
him
is
16.
"Irish
Emigration
to the
West"
(Irish
American
Weekly
1861a,
5).
17.
"Sabbath
Review,
Prepared for
the
Constitution
by
the
Rev.
A.
G.
Carothers"
(Daily
National
Intelligencer
1858,
2).
18.
"Religious
Intelligence"
(Providence
Evening
Press
1859,
78).
244
*
American
Political
Thought
*
Fall
2014
a
motive to
imitate
his
Christian
virtues,
and
to
strive in
the race
of
life
for
such
a
crown
as
he
has
received.
Oh,
how
blest
is
our
brother
so
recently
with
us,
but
now
in
a
better
world."
19
Finally,
with
its
invocation,
users
of the
phrase
"race
of
life"
oftentimes
warned
against
shortcuts
that
put
short-term
pleasures
in
front
of
living
life
justly.
For
example,
recounting
the
story
of
a
race
where
a
yacht
crashed
squeezing
through
a
prohibited
short-cut
called
Plumb
Gut,
a
writer
in the
New
York
Times
in
1858
applied
the
lesson
to
life
in general:
"Woe
unto
them
who
making
haste
to
be
rich
go
through
Plumb
Gut
...
in
the
Race
of
life,
keep
carefully
on
the
right
side
of the
Stepping
Stones."
2 0
A
sermon
by
the Reverend Charles
Kingsley,
an
influential
writer and
social
reformer
of
the
period,
illustrated
both
the economic
striving
and
need
to
temper this
with duty, obligation,
and virtue.
2 1
Kingsley
exemplified
the
evangelical
revival
in
the
Church
of England.
His
message
resonated
with
religiously
inspired
reform
groups
of American
evangelicals
during
the
Second
Awakening
as
both
Kingsley
and
the American
evangelical
reformers
fused
a
quest
for
social
reform with individual
salvation.
Kingsley
exemplified
the
audience
that
Lincoln needed
to
attract
to
capture
his
base
of
former
Whigs.
In
his
sermon
on the
second
letter of
Saint
Paul
to
Timothy
(2
Timothy
4:6-8)
entitled
"The
Race
of
Life," Kingsley
preached:
"we
have
all
a
race to
run.
We have
all
a
journey
to
make
through
life.
...
God
has
given
each
of
us
our
powers and
character,
marked
out
for each
of us
our
path
in
life,
set
each
of
us
our
duty to
do"
(1863/1908,
74).22
In
the rest of the sermon,
Kingsley
preached
that
his
congregation
should
avoid
what
he
considered
"weakness
of
a
man's
soul"
("stupidity,
laziness,
cowardice,
bad
temper,
greediness after
pleasure")
on the
one
hand, and
"man's
willfulness
and
perverseness"
("cun-
ning,
falsehood,
covetousness,
pride,
self-conceit,
tyranny,
cruelty") on the
other
(75).
While Lincoln capitalized
on many
of
these
previous associations,
he also en-
gaged in
conceptual innovation.
In
his
own
uses,
Lincoln altered
what
Skinner
19.
"Rev.
Dr.
Dimmick"
(Boston Recorder
1860,
82).
See
also "Sunday
Readings.
From
the
N.Y.
Observer.
The
Dead
Are
Better
Off.
Letter
to
a
Sister"
(Farmers' Cabinet
1859,
1).
20.
"The Perils
of
Plumb
Gut"
(New
York
Times
1858,
4);
see
also:
"Sermon
by
the
Rev.
H.
W.
Brocher.
Sermon
by
the
Rev.
Henry
W.
Bellows.
Sermon
by
the
Rev.
Dr.
Adams"
(New-York
Daily Tribune
1854,
5).
21.
For
the
exuberant
praise
Kingsley
received
in
Northern
papers,
see,
e.g.,
"New
Publications"
(Hartford
Daily
Courant
1854,
2);
"Charles
Kingsley's
Poems"
(New
York
Daily
Times
1856,
2). For examples
from
the South,
see
"Charles
Kingsley
and His
Writings"
(Charleston Mercury
1855,
2);
"Kingsley's
Miscellanies"
(Charleston
Mercury
1858,
2).
22.
The
sermon
was advertised
for
sale
as
part
of
a
larger collection
(New
York
Tribune
1859,
1).
Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
.
245
(1989)
called
"the
range
of
reference,"
meaning
the
application
of
the
term.
The
most common
use
of the
phrase
"race
of
life"
in
nineteenth-century
news-
paper
discourse was
evaluations
of
one's individual
life
journey.
Usages
such
as:
"the old couple
...
were little
apprehensive,
that
their
race
of
life
was
to
be
ended,"
"age
overtook
them
in
the
"race
of
life,"
and
"we
began
the
race
of
life
together"
were
common.
2 3
Lincoln's
invocation
of the
term
"race
of
life"
in
political
contexts
was
unusual.
A
search
of
the
Hartford
Courant,
New
York
Daily
Tribune,
and
New
York
Times (1854-65)
for
the
phrase
"race
of
life"
turned
up no
uses
by
Republican
leaders
such
as
William
H.
Seward,
J.
C.
Fremont,
or
Benjamin
Wade
and
none
by
Anti-Nebraska Democrats
such
as
Lyman Trumbull.
2 4
A
search
of the
Southern Democratic
newspapers-
Times
Picayune,
Daily Dispatch,
Charleston
Mercury,
and
Memphis
Daily
Appeal-suggests
that
the
term was
no
more
popular
in
Southern Democratic
political
circles.
Unlike
the
potentially
related
concept of
free
labor
that
was
incredibly
politicized
and
partisan,
"the
race
of
life"
was used
in
a
nonpartisan
fashion
in
Democratic
and
Republican
newspapers
alike.
Furthermore,
Lin-
coln's
uses
differed
from
what
Skinner
called
the
"range
of
attitudes"
the
term
was
standardly
used
to
express. Both
sides
had
praised
different
aspects
of
the
phrase.
While
some
Northern
Democrats
had
used
the
term
to
express
ap-
proval
for
the
striving
to
become
a
self-made
man
(see
the
invocations
in the
Irish American
Weekly
articles),
the
more
conservative Whigs
used
the
term to
express
approval
for
living
one's
life
according
to
notions
of
honor,
duty, or
Christian
values.
Lincoln
fused these
ideas
together.
Invoking
the
Declaration
and
the
Revolution,
Lincoln
used "the
race
of
life"
to
stress
that
the
success
of
both
the
individual
and
polity
were
inter-
dependent.
In his
eulogy
to
Henry
Clay
on
July
6,
1852, Lincoln argued: "The
infant
nation,
and
the
infant
child began
the
race
of
life
together. For
three
quarters
of
a
century
they
have
travelled
hand
in
hand.
They
have been
companions
ever."
Lincoln's
use
of
"race
of
life"
in
this passage
combined
elements
seen
in
the
newspapers,
such
as
discussions of
public
figures'
life
journey
and
praise
for
the perseverance
of
individuals
in
attaining
their
own
goals.
While Lincoln
praised
Clay's
social
mobility,
he
singled
out
acclaim for
Clay's
service
to
the
public
so
that
in
his
death
"now
the
nation
mourns
for
the
23. "An
Awful
Catastrophe-the
Odd
Fellows"
(Philadelphia
Inquirer
1857,
1);
"Fire
Lands Historical
Society-First
Regular
Meeting
at
Norwalk"
(Sandusky Register
1857,
2);
"Richard Hoffman,
on
the
Peasant
and
the
Nobleman,
a
Tale
of
Love
and
Retribution"
(New
York
Ledger
1858,
5).
See
also
New
York
Times
(1854,
3;
1860);
Memphis
Daily
Appeal
(1856,
2;
1857,
2);
Daily
Picayune
(1858,
7);
Farmer
(1859,
2).
24.
I
also
conducted
a
search
for
the
phrase
in
William
Lloyd
Garrison's
influential
abolitionist
paper,
the
Liberator,
and found
only
three
references
to
it.
246
*
American
Political
Thought
*
Fall
2014
man."
Lincoln's
use
of
the
phrase
departed
from
his
contemporaries'
use
in
the
analogy
between
Clay
and
the
country's
race
of
life
having progressed to-
gether
as
"companions,"
each
serving
the
other
through
"perils."
Unlike
his
contemporaries
who applied
the
term
to individuals,
Lincoln
made
the
country
a
runner
in
the
race
of
life,
implying
that
the
interests
of
country and
individual
were
intertwined.
By
making
the
country
a
participant
in the race
of
life,
Lincoln's
formulation
specifically
makes
the
self-made
in-
dividual
dependent
on political practices
and
institutions.
For
Lincoln, there
was
no
greater
compliment
than
to
say
a
man
gave his
life
to
perpetuate
the
Revolution's
principles.
By
changing
the
invocation
of
a
calling
to
serve
God
to
a
calling
to
serve
the principles
of
the
revolution
and
the
nation,
Lincoln
imbued
fraternity
into an otherwise
very
individualistic
metaphor.
The
"race
of
life"
invoked
the
fraternity
Lincoln
saw
as
necessary
to
the
perpetuation
of
US
institutions.
Lincoln
counseled the
duty
not
as
submission to
a
higher
law
of
God
(as
had
other
religious
invocations
of the
term),
but
as
the
necessary
prerequisite
of the
ability
to
secure
the self-ownership
promised
in
the
Dec-
laration.
With
his
usage, Lincoln
invoked
the
association
of
the race
of
life
with
having
a
purpose
beyond frittering away
our
energies
on
frivolous
pur-
suits
(Lincoln
1953,
2:121-22).
Lincoln's
uses
differed
from
his
contemporaries
by
his
"range
of
reference"
(to
use
Skinner's
term;
Skinner 1989,10). While
his
contemporaries
focused
on the
individual
competing
in
a
race, Lincoln shifted
attention
equally to
the
polity, which
is
perhaps
best exemplified
in
his
famous
1861
message
to
Con-
gress
on
the
Fourth
of
July.
Part
of
the enduring
persistence
in
the
continuing
use
of
the
term
"race
of
life"
in
later
discourse
undoubtedly
stems
from
the
dra-
matic
context
in
which
Lincoln
delivered
this
speech.
Lincoln
ordered
Congress
back
into
special
session
on July 4,
so
that
he
could
send
his message
to
Congress
while
both
Northerners
and
Southerners
were
carrying
out
Independence
Day
celebrations.
After
justifying
his
extraordinary
measures
at
Fort
Sumter,
his
suspension of
habeas
corpus,
and
calling
Congress
to authorize
400,000
men
and $400
million
to
fight
the
secessionists,
Lincoln
provided
a
compelling
jus-
tification
for
these
measures
that
the
"plain people"
would
"understand
and
appreciate."
"This
is
essentially
a
people's
contest.
On
the
side
of
the
Union
it
is
a
struggle
for
maintaining
in
the
world
that
form
and substance
of
gov-
ernment
whose
leading
object
is
to
elevate
the
condition
of
men;
to
lift artifi-
cial
weights
from
all
shoulders;
to
clear
the
paths
of
laudable
pursuit
for
all;
to afford
all
an
unfettered
start
and
a
fair
chance
in the race
of
life.
Yielding
to
partial
and
temporary
departures, from
necessity,
this
is
the leading
object
of the
Government
for whose
existence
we
contend"
(Lincoln
1858, 4:438).
The struggle
of
the
Union,
the
grave risks
in
blood
and
treasure,
were
required
not
merely
to
preserve
national
unity
but
to
maintain
for
the
whole
Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
*
247
world
a
government
that
would
support
rail-splitter
republicanism,
that
would
"afford
all
an
unfettered
start
and
a
fair
chance
in
the
race
of
life."
This
principle
maintained
"a
government
of the people,
by
the
same
people"
and
provided
a
model
"to the
whole
family
of
man"
that
this form
of govern-
ment
was
possible
(Lincoln
1953,
4:426).
If
rebellion
was
"sugar-coated"
as
states'
rights
and
if
Southern
leaders
were
successful
in
"drugging the public
mind
of
their
section"
in
order
that
the
seceders
can
find
the
"easiest
way"
to
secure
their power
and wealth
or "any
other
selfish,
or
unjust
object"
then
government would
no
longer
afford
all
a
fair
chance
in
the
race
of
life
(4:433,
436).
When
group
or
personal
self-aggrandizement
trumps
the
"attachment
of
the
People,"
the "principle
itself
is
one
of
disintegration,
and
upon
which no
government
can possibly
endure"
(4:436). For
the
individual's
ability
to
have
a
fair
chance
in
the
race
of
life is
dependent
upon
free
political
institutions,
a
free
and
competitive
system
of economic exchange,
and
ultimately
on social
prerequisites
of the
attachment
of
the
people
to the
Declaration and
each
other
that
holds
together
the
integrity
of
these
political
institutions.
As
he
had
in
his
Clay
eulogy,
in
this
1861
speech,
Lincoln
tied the
destiny
of
the
individual with
that
of the
nation.
He
argued
the
country's
principle
was
worth
the
struggle
because
this
principle
in
turn
had
served
people
in the
nation
well.
Only the
country's
commitment
to equality
had
afforded
indi-
viduals
a
fair chance.
Like
his
intertwining
of
Clay's
and
the
nation's
life
journey,
in
the
1861
speech
he
argued
that
the
country's
principles
and
in-
dividuals'
social
mobility
had
been
companions
and
the
only
way
they
would
continue
to
pass
their
perils
was
by
fighting
for
these
principles. The
organi-
zation
of
the
speech
revealed
the
extent
to
which Lincoln
had
in
mind
an
example
like
Clay
as
being
exemplary
of
this
"race
of
life"
principle.
Before
moving on
to
the
section
on
defining the
"leading
object
of the
government"
as
the
"race
of
life,"
Lincoln
had
included
a
section
that
gave
examples of
"laudable
pursuits."
Lincoln
argued
that
the
country had
so
cleared
the
paths
in
the
"race
of
life"
that
many
single
regiments
in
both
the
North
and
South
contained
"full
practical
knowledge
of
all
the
arts,
sciences,
professions,
and
whatever
else;
whether
useful
or elegant,
is
known
to
the
world;
and
there
is
scarcely
one
from
which there could
not
be
selected
a
President,
a
Cabinet,
a
Congress,
and perhaps
a
Court, abundantly
competent
to
administer
the
Government
itself"
(Lincoln
1953,
4:437).
Lincoln
argued
that
service
to
the
principles of the
revolution
was
man's
highest
calling
and
in
the
quote
he
described
public
office
("a
President,
a
Cabinet,
a
Congress,
and perhaps
a
Court")
as
the
paradigm
of
the
most laudable purposes.
Three
years
later,
with
the
war consuming
the
nation,
Lincoln
encouraged
the
One
Hundred
Sixty-Sixth
Ohio
regiment
by
continuing
to
define
the
cause
of their
military
efforts
as
maintaining
in
this
world
"an open
field
and
a
fair
248
*
American
Political
Thought
*
Fall
2014
chance for
your
industry,
enterprise
and
intelligence;
that
you
may
all
have
equal
privileges
in the race
of
life
with
all
its
desirable
human
aspirations
...
that
we
may
not
lose
our
birthright"
(Lincoln 1953,
7:512).
Lincoln's
short
address
succinctly
states
the
case
for
all
four
characteristics
of
rail-splitter
republicanism. The appeal
for
"an open
field
and
a
fair chance
for
your
indus-
try, enterprise
and
intelligence"
provides
a
quick
explication
of
the
nineteenth-
century conception
of
self-ownership.
Lincoln's
reference
to
the ideal
of
the
"race
of
life" as
a
"birthright" worthy
of
the
soldiers'
sacrifice
perfectly
expressed
the
republican
idea
that
holds
that
our
lives
take
on
significance
to
the
extent
that
we
contribute to
the
maintenance of
a
larger
universal. While
it
was in
each
individual's
long-term
self-interest
to
ensure
victory in the
contest
so
that
"each
of
you
.
..
have
an
open
field
and
a
fair chance for
your
industry,"
he
clarified,
"It
is
not
merely
for
to-day, but
for
all
time
to
come
that
we
should
perpetuate
for
our
children's
children
this
great
and
free
government."
While
Lincoln
ar-
gued
that
he
was
a
"living
witness"
that
anyone
could
rise
to
the
White
House,
this was
not
a
statement
simply
of individualistic
competition
in
a
life
journey
that
we
saw
in
the
Irish
American
Weekly.
It
was
appropriate
for Lincoln
to
use
the
"race
of
life"
and
its
connotations
of
duty
and
honor
in
an
address
to
sol-
diers
who
were
literally
risking their
lives
for
the
country.
Lincoln
explained
that
the
soldiers
fought
for
each
other
and
for
their
posterity
(to
"maintain
in
this
world")
the principle of
the
Declaration.
The
significance
of their
life
journey
rested
in
the
fate
of the
country's
ability
to
maintain
the race
of
life,
which
in
turn
depended on
the
attachment
of
the
people
(such
as
the
soldiers
he
addressed)
to
the
principle of the
Declaration
and
to
each
other
(Lincoln 1953,
7:512).
4.
CONCLUSION
Getting Lincoln
right-to
borrow
David
Donald's
formulation-means
re-
jecting
competitive
equality
of
opportunity
or the American
Dream
as
tan-
tamount
to Lincoln's
"race
of
life"
(Donald
1956,
3-14).
Lincoln
created
and
adopted
a
new political
vocabulary
out
of
his
linguistic
context
and connected
people's personal
pursuit
of
self-interest
with
the
fraternity
implicit
in
people's
emotional
attachment
to America's
founding.
Although
the
literatures
on
the
conceptual
history
of
equality
of
oppor-
tunity
in
the
United
States
and
the
history
of
the
concept
of
the
American
Dream
may
be
right
to
portray
Lincoln
as
introducing
"the race
of
life"
into
mainstream
political
debate,
without
analyzing
how
Lincoln's
audience
un-
derstood
these
terms the
effect
of
Lincoln's
speech
act
cannot
be
accurately
understood.
Conflating Lincoln's
"race
of
life"
with
the
competitive
equality
of
opportunity
central
to
contemporary
conceptions
of the American
Dream
not
Lincoln's
"Race
of
Life"
*
249
only
obscures
Lincoln's
novel fusion
of
republican
and
liberal
elements,
but
also
ends
up
using the
authority
of
Lincoln
to bolster
a
conception
of
equality
at odds
with
Lincoln's own political
career
and
thought.
For instance,
it
is
not
clear
that
Schaar's
brilliant
critique of competitive
equality
of
opportunity
would
apply
to
Lincoln's concept
of
having an equal
chance
in
the
race
of
life.
Schaar
(1967)
argued
that
equality
of
opportunity
buttresses
"the competitive
capitalistic
spirit
and
not
the
democratic
spirit"
and
"is
the
product
of
a
competitive
and
fragmented
society,
a
divided
society,
a
society
in
which
in-
dividualism,
in
Tocqueville's
sense
of the
word,
is
the
reigning ethical
prin-
ciple,"
and
"it
extends
the
marketplace
mentality to
all
the
spheres of
life"
(230-37).
Lincoln, however, made the
country
a
runner
in the
race
of
life,
implying
that
the
interests
of
country
and
individual
were
intertwined,
and
his
use
of the
"race
of
life"
brought attention
for
the need
of
fraternity ("the
attachment
of the
people")
to
support
the
ability of
every
individual
having
an equal
chance. Likewise,
for
scholars of
the
American
Dream
to
say
Lincoln
is
the
"Jesus
Christ"
of
the
concept
of
the American (Cullen
2003,
96,
100),
that
he
is
the
"prism
through
which
the light
of
the American
Dream
[of
equality
of opportunity]
passed
to
become
a
purer, broader
beam"
(Jillson
2004,
99),
or
that
the
Civil
War
should
be
seen as
"Lincoln's
War
for
the American
Dream"
(Boritt
1974/1994,
99,
275-78)
incorrectly
implies
that
his
"race
of
life"
concep-
tion
was
the
epitome
of
the
competitive equality of
opportunity
concept.
Without
more
conceptual
clarity Lincoln's
rail-splitter republicanism
can
easily
be
conflated
with later
concepts of competitive
equality
of
opportunity
and
the American
Dream
that
lack the
fraternity
and duty central to
Lincoln's
uses.
For example,
after
citing
Lincoln
the
civil
rights
plank
in
the
Republican
platform
of
1948 stated:
"One
of the
basic
principles of
this Republic
is
the
equality
of
all
individuals
in
their
right
to
life,
liberty,
and
the
pursuit
of
happiness.
This
principle
is
enunciated
in
the
Declaration
of
Independence
and
embodied
in
the
Constitution
of the
United
States;
it
was
vindicated
on
the
field
of
battle and
became
the
cornerstone
of
this Republic.
This
right
of
equal
opportunity
to
work
and
advance
in
life
should
never
be
limited
in
any indi-
vidual
because
of
race, religion,
color, or
country
of
origin"
(New
York
Amster-
dam
News
1948,
10).
This
sounds
like
a
restatement
of
Lincoln.
It
is
not.
Equal
opportunity
to
work
and
advance
in
life
were
necessary,
but
not
sufficient
for
Lincoln
because
they
do
not
necessarily
encompass
the
equality
that
Lincoln claimed
was
promised
by
the
Declaration.
Furthermore,
to establish
the
practices
and
in-
stitutions
that
would
foster
this
equality
required
a
political
religion
that
tapped
into
the
emotional
resources of
people's
reverence
for
religion
and
the
Revolution
and
combined
these
with
an
understanding
that
the
pursuit
of
self-
interest depended
upon
the
attachment
of the
people
to political
principles.
250
*
American
Political
Thought
*
Fall
2014
We
could
see
the
contemporary
conception of
equal
opportunity
as
tantamount
to the
"race
of
life"
as
does
Boritt
(1974/1994),
but
if
we
divorced
equality
of
opportunity
from
the
equality of
inalienable
rights
described in the
Declaration
this
would
essentially
be
an endorsement
of
Douglas'
popular
sovereignty
principle
to
pursue
your
own
self-interest.
The
difficulty
of
fitting
Lincoln's
rail-
splitter
republicanism into
the
established concepts
reminds
us
of
the
presence
of more
organic
fusions
of republican
and
liberal
elements
in
America's
history
than
is
usually afforded
in the
reified
categories
of
equality
of
opportunity
and
the American
Dream ubiquitous
in
contemporary
political
discourse.
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