Republican candidates for President spend an awful amount of time apologizing to the so-called orthodoxy of their Party for prior forays into unpopular proposals. Newt Gingrich was for healthcare mandates before President Obama signed them into law, his mea culpa is forthcoming. Mitt Romney is constantly defending the individual mandate he signed into law while Governor of Massachusetts. Tim Pawlenty bows before the orthodoxy of climate change having nothing to do with the activities of man, as he explains his former embrace of cap and trade as a mistake. The Tea Party inspired right of the party holds absolute sway over the nomination process forcing all moderate candidates into hiding. What would Lincoln think?
Lincoln fought a War over States Rights
President Abraham Lincoln had a mission, not to free the slaves, but to preserve the Union. Today’s Republican Party wants a smaller less powerful and inexpensive union. Lincoln didn’t believe in the independence of states or “states rights”. In a special session of congress he stated; "Having never been States, either in substance, or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of 'State rights,' asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself?”
Later in the same speech he decried; “On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial 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.” Hence was the reasoning a great President had for war with his countrymen. Today his own party wouldn’t elect him, for few would find elevating the conditions of men laudable enough to vote for without thought of fiscal restraint.
Diverging from the Past makes a murky Future
President Ronald Reagan, patron saint to the new right raised taxes, he called them user fees. Combined with some budget cuts was able to weather a recession and increase military spending. Theodore Roosevelt established the National Park Service and used the largess of the federal government to procure large swaths of land for public use, a decided break from the primacy of private property now held by supposed conservatives who want to do oil exploration in the country's most sensitive regions. The establishment of the federal income tax itself was an idea supported by President William Howard Taft, a conservative Republican.
Is the Spirit of Compromise Dead
Today there are some on the right fringe of the Republican Party that openly talk about succession! Lincoln is surely rolling over in his grave. The Party of Lincoln has become somewhat less that and more like the 19th century Democrats who were trying to maintain their way of life in the antebellum south…minus slavery. This drags down the national discourse from compromise to stalemate. Without a willing partner who accepts the basic concept of a “more perfect union” differences in policy become chasms of reality
Sources:
- Modern History Sourcebook: Abraham Lincoln Special Session of Congress July 4 1861
- Reuters......Factbox: Key issues for possible Republican candidates in 2012
- Miller Center for Public Affairs, University of Virginia. Online Reference Guide
- FreeRepublic.com from the Cyprus Times by Darrell Mulloy
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