Click here to read letters by Fred Kaplan, Michael Kazin, John Stauffer, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The following is Sean Wilentz's response to their letters.
I wrote a 25,000 word essay about Abraham Lincoln, not Barack Obama. My aim was to review some of the most prominent scholarly books interpreting Lincoln on the occasion of his bicentennial, and to offer a different view of Lincoln as, first and foremost, a democratic politician. The essay took some of the books severely to task and pointed out repeated abuses of historical evidence and reasoning, including important factual errors, manipulation of documents, and specious logic. More generally, it pointed out the damage to historical understanding that results when writers slight or misread Lincoln’s political skills, or disparage his political maneuvering as insufficiently idealistic and beautiful.
I hoped that my essay would stir up an interesting debate over Lincoln; and I expected that some of the authors would attempt to rebut what I wrote. Yet apart from a few feeble feints, these letters do not muster a single substantive reply to my charges about shoddy scholarship: nolo contendere. Although Lincoln gets discussed, the letters are at least as interested, if not more so, in Thomas Jefferson, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. Instead of arguing seriously and decently over history, three of these writers attack me for carrying on a supposed grudge left over from last year’s primaries, and then trying to disguise my bitterness as nineteenth-century history. Expert debaters know that there is only one course of action when one is caught in a mistake or infraction but does not wish acknowledge it: admit nothing, change the subject, and impugn the other person’s motives and character.
Fred Kaplan’s book, as I said in my essay, makes some useful points about Lincoln’s literary mind, but overdoes them. To recapitulate, briefly: Because Kaplan slights the political context, he attributes great Shakespearian echoes to passages in Lincoln’s prose that Lincoln demonstrably adapted from Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Daniel Webster. Because Kaplan sets such great store by Lincoln as a literary man, he cannot see clearly enough the limits, and the uses, of eloquence in politics and government. Because he becomes so invested in his idea of Lincoln as a literary man, he comes up with groundless formulations about how, at one point or another “the only weapon [Lincoln] had at his command was language.” To say, as I do, that this sort of contention has become an English Department conceit should hardly be controversial. Neither is it an attack on literary criticism, or on literary critics who analyze the writing of political figures or anyone else they choose. It is chiefly a criticism of Kaplan’s analysis of Lincoln, and on its sloppy and over-reaching thinking about language, rhetoric, and politics, which abounds in the academy these days, and of which Kaplan’s assertions are symptomatic.
My essay did not at all dispute, as Kaplan charges, that “the literary Lincoln and the political Lincoln are inseparable.” That, in a way, was my very point. My complaint was that Kaplan and others either demote or ignore or misunderstand the political Lincoln, and the place of politics in Lincoln’s identity. My essay did not imply that David Herbert Donald should not have written his distinguished biography of Thomas Wolfe, any more than it implied that Perry Miller should not have written about Cotton Mather. I suggest that Kaplan re-read my praise of how another author under review, the biographer and historian of theology, Ronald C. White, interprets Lincoln’s reading and writing. There is a difference between doing a thing and doing it well, and all I say is that Kaplan’s book often does the thing poorly. To point out this difference is what critics do: historical critics, literary critics, or any other kind of critic. To evade the evidence of his failures, Kaplan wraps himself in the mantle of his betters and treats my criticism of his work as an indictment of any effort to write about the literary side of a political figure.
Kaplan is one of the writers who claim that my essay has a devious political agenda. In fact, I spent all but about 1,500 of my many thousands of words on detailed discussions of Lincoln in his various phases and aspects. As it happens, I did not include Kaplan’s book in my discussion of the Lincolnization of Obama and what it tells us about the larger intellectual climate. I had no idea whom he supported for the presidency last year. I don’t care. It has nothing to do with my criticisms of his book.
Michael Kazin, who does not have a book in this affray, opens his letter with a highly flattering sentence about my previous work. He then observes, regarding Lincoln, that my “general thesis should be beyond dispute.” The trouble is that it is not beyond dispute amid the proliferation of cultural studies and the like, which is why I wrote my essay. In line with his view that my argument was not only offensive but also obvious--a neat trick--Kazin proceeds to observe condescendingly that my observations on Lincoln and race are unoriginal--that they are merely an echo of a review Eric Arnesen wrote seven years ago for The New Republic, about so-called “whiteness studies” and American labor history. It is true that I briefly bring up whiteness studies in my discussion of one of the seven books under review; and it is true that I have found myself in almost complete agreement over the years with Arnesen. He and I have been allies in the labor history wars for a long time. And he will surely understand that my long discussion of Lincoln and race was not an homage to his book review. For Kazin to reduce all my historiographical criticisms on this vast and subtle subject to my objections about whiteness studies is--as our students might say--sketch.
According to Kazin, my Lincoln essay is really a sneaky effort to extend what he imagines is my hostility toward Barack Obama. He cites my criticisms of Obama published more than a year ago during the primaries, when I supported Hillary Clinton, and some friendly criticisms of his campaign after he secured the nomination, when I publicly supported him--although Kazin’s letter makes me wonder if he can allow that there is such a thing as friendly criticism of Obama. Passing cursorily over what I had to say about Lincoln, Kazin has an idee fixe about my view of about Obama--as if my view was fixed. He disqualifies my remarks, at the essay’s conclusion, about the intellectuals’ love affair with Obama as Lincolnian and above partisanship, because he did not see signs of that love affair during his own grassroots campaign work. Quite apart from its solipsism, this is odd. My essay never said that all of Obama’s supporters, or even most of them, were swept up by the romance; it said only that many liberal intellectuals were so entranced, as well as members of the political press corps. Is this really controversial?
Kazin accuses me of attacking Obama “for possessing just those qualities [I] believe naive liberals ignore when they write about Lincoln.” In fact, far from attacking Obama, I laud him for his political shrewdness, which I say is his truest Lincolnian trait. The essay--which is, I swear, about Abraham Lincoln, no matter what Kazin imagines--does contest the view that there were somehow two Lincolns, a party hack who then experienced some sort of mystical conversion (thanks to the goading of slaves and radicals) and went on to become a great statesman. And it attacks the kind of latter-day Mugwump liberalism--far more prevalent in the academic intelligentsia than in the electorate at large--that equates political virtue with political purity. Kazin clearly thinks that he and his political associates are not so na?ve. But does he mean to propose, with a straight face, that this political strain does not exist, and that its supporters are not legion, and that the Obama campaign failed to batten upon their idealism?
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COMMENTS (14)
Wilentz: 2
Gates, Stauffer et al: 0
As an Obama supporter in last year's primaries, I congratulate Mr. Wilentz on an excellent response.
Wilentz: 2
Gates, Stauffer et al: 0
As an Obama supporter in last year's primaries, I congratulate Mr. Wilentz on an excellent response.
If as you stated, Jefferson believes that blacks are genetically inferior to whites, then of course, blacks were excluded when, in the declaration of independence, he wrote that "all men are created equal". Isn't that very obvious? Henry Louis Gates was right on that point.
If as you stated, Jefferson believes that blacks are genetically inferior to whites, then of course, blacks were excluded when, in the declaration of independence, he wrote that "all men are created equal". Isn't that very obvious? Henry Louis Gates was right on that point.
Mr Wilentz - I think you have a point with your frustrations. You wrote a challenging article as a historian, not a political commentator anymore. It should be considered on its historical merits and readability, nothing else. I am a Lincoln fanatic, so I eagerly dug in to your article - the more human and multi-faceted we present Lincoln, the better. You are hardly the first historian I've read who took a blow torch to the canonization of the man and the holes in some of the scholarship. Bring it on, I say, why not? There are just as many fascinating counterarguments to the gauntlets you threw down. I have to say though, I tried mightily to trudge through it all, it was work - the readabil ... view full comment
Mr Wilentz - I think you have a point with your frustrations. You wrote a challenging article as a historian, not a political commentator anymore. It should be considered on its historical merits and readability, nothing else. I am a Lincoln fanatic, so I eagerly dug in to your article - the more human and multi-faceted we present Lincoln, the better. You are hardly the first historian I've read who took a blow torch to the canonization of the man and the holes in some of the scholarship. Bring it on, I say, why not? There are just as many fascinating counterarguments to the gauntlets you threw down. I have to say though, I tried mightily to trudge through it all, it was work - the readability was weak.Truthfully, your writing voice and perspective was so universally sour in bordered on hateful. This was highly distracting, unneccesarily so. The voice came across as someone looking for a fight, and not in a jovial historian way, like a drunk guy at a bar way. I care not a whit for your views on the primary last year. I say this entirely as a reader and a writer. You came across hectoring regardless of what the topic was. I didn't get it. A rousing good demolition of the status quo should be done with gusto and even fun. Your piece was about as rousing and full of gusto as a root canal. Get an editor who can help you with that awful tone of yours. Sadly for you after all the work you did, the crazies reacted to that, not the topic.
I enjoyed Sean Wilentz's piece on the recent spate of Lincoln books; I always learn something from him that I inevitably share with students. But I was disappointed that he left out Vernon Burton's The Age of Lincoln in his review--a great contribution to scholarship on Lincoln that has been inexplicably neglected since its publication in 2008.
I enjoyed Sean Wilentz's piece on the recent spate of Lincoln books; I always learn something from him that I inevitably share with students. But I was disappointed that he left out Vernon Burton's The Age of Lincoln in his review--a great contribution to scholarship on Lincoln that has been inexplicably neglected since its publication in 2008.
Four years ago I saw the movie Crash which showed the virtual tinderbox of race relations that existed in our country. Today, sadly, race relations are not any better, despite a Black President. The overwhelming outpouring of letters posted to this site and many others after the President's comment about the Gates incident clearly indicated that we also have not come any further than we were after the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial was announced sixteen years ago with Blacks celebrating and Whites in stunned disbelief. Each side has their own views about race and sometimes, oftentimes, even while perceptions may not be true, perception for that race becomes reality.
One thing I know for ce ... view full comment
Four years ago I saw the movie Crash which showed the virtual tinderbox of race relations that existed in our country. Today, sadly, race relations are not any better, despite a Black President. The overwhelming outpouring of letters posted to this site and many others after the President's comment about the Gates incident clearly indicated that we also have not come any further than we were after the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial was announced sixteen years ago with Blacks celebrating and Whites in stunned disbelief. Each side has their own views about race and sometimes, oftentimes, even while perceptions may not be true, perception for that race becomes reality.
One thing I know for certain is that someday life on our planet will end but it will not be because we did not do enough about climate change. It will be because we did not do enough to change the climate of hatred, bigotry, anger, mistrust, hopelessness, and despair. Whether in our own country, the Mideast, or in many countries around the world, we are more concerned about what divides us instead of the things we have in common that can bring us together.
This past week I spent several hours reading postings about the Obama/Gates comments and on Israeli sites about the Arab Israeli conflict. I came away from reading hundreds of letters feeling very sad about my fellow human beings. If we would could only bottle half of the energy we expend hating and mistrusting others and use it to fight disease, poverty, and hunger, this world would be a lot better off. Before we worry about climate change let's concentrate on changing the climate about working together to make this planet we inhabit a wonderful life for everyone.
Wilentz claims to be surprised at the extent to which those responding to his Lincoln piece have latched onto his discussion of the "almost cultish enthusiasm" that those lacking his superior political sophistication exhibited for then-candidate Obama. Why are they doing this, Wilentz wonders, when his discussion of Obama occupied only "about 1,500" words of his "25,000 word" piece"? Here Wilentz is either being disingenuous or he is demonstrating a lack of rhetorical sophistication that is nothing short of astonishing. As he surely know, emphasis does not depend on the relative quantity of words; it depends, more importantly, on their placement. Coming at the end of his piece -- rhetoricall ... view full comment
Wilentz claims to be surprised at the extent to which those responding to his Lincoln piece have latched onto his discussion of the "almost cultish enthusiasm" that those lacking his superior political sophistication exhibited for then-candidate Obama. Why are they doing this, Wilentz wonders, when his discussion of Obama occupied only "about 1,500" words of his "25,000 word" piece"? Here Wilentz is either being disingenuous or he is demonstrating a lack of rhetorical sophistication that is nothing short of astonishing. As he surely know, emphasis does not depend on the relative quantity of words; it depends, more importantly, on their placement. Coming at the end of his piece -- rhetorically the most emphatic position -- his discussion of Obama could not help but cast a long shadow on everything that preceded it. On the other hand, there's at least one point in Wilentz's response with which I heartily agree: "It will be a sad day when history writing is left only to the professional historians."
Pwned. Well played, Wilentz. Gentlemen, the ball is in your court.
Pwned. Well played, Wilentz. Gentlemen, the ball is in your court.
Given the immense complexity of the issues in Wilentz's article, I can't begin to tackle them in detail; but there is one point that leapt off the page at me. Wilentz quotes Lincoln as saying that "our good Father in heaven made the evil of slavery so plain that all understand it, even to the brutes and the creeping insects." Leaving aside the obvious hyperbole (if "all" understood it, what on earth was the Civil War about?), this statement raises one of the most fascinating questions about human history in general: how do Christians (or Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc.) account for the fact that an evil which many of them at some point in history denounce as insupportable, based on their interpr ... view full comment
Given the immense complexity of the issues in Wilentz's article, I can't begin to tackle them in detail; but there is one point that leapt off the page at me. Wilentz quotes Lincoln as saying that "our good Father in heaven made the evil of slavery so plain that all understand it, even to the brutes and the creeping insects." Leaving aside the obvious hyperbole (if "all" understood it, what on earth was the Civil War about?), this statement raises one of the most fascinating questions about human history in general: how do Christians (or Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc.) account for the fact that an evil which many of them at some point in history denounce as insupportable, based on their interpretation of their religion (as Christian abolitionists did with slavery) was an evil that for (literal) millenia had raised no hue and cry whatsoever in their own ranks? There was not a wisp of a peep of a hint, anywhere in the Christian tradition, that slavery was anything other than fully godly from the first century until the eighteenth century. What had changed? The answer, of course, is that the observers (i.e., Christians) had changed -- largely as a result of that much-reviled secular humanist movement that awakened people to the injustices inherent in practices that everyone had considered perfectly normal until then. This argues for the notion (if one is religious) that God's overall revelation to man is essentially evolutionary in character: that, as we mature as a race, we gradually see more, understand more, and thus appreciate more and more of God's designs. This, in turn, puts paid to the fundamentalist notion that revelation is essentially dead: that a book written millenia ago has all of the ultimate truth, and that there is nothing more to be learned or added to it. Yet neither Lincoln (nor most religious people even today) ever seem to even address this problem, perhaps because it would lead them down philosophical byways that they would rather not travel. (The irreligious, of course, have no such dilemma to contend with). Even today, following this question to its logical conclusion would upset a great many precepts that many people live by. Which, of course, is one of the best reasons imaginable why one should study history.
The suggestion of WandreyCer (above) that Mr. Wilentz'
article needed an editor struck a real chord with me
since I think the whole magazine needs an editor. Here
someone is just a little too impressed with himself and with the fact that he is an historian. The macro
problem with the article, for us boobs who aren't
historians, is that it labors for 25 pages to make
the obvious--or at least simply stated--point that
Lincoln was a politician, not a plaster saint or a
philosopher, and ought to be judged accordingly.
Fine. But are all these nit-picking minutiae
considered by the author or the editors to be a suitable statement on the occasion ... view full comment
The suggestion of WandreyCer (above) that Mr. Wilentz'
article needed an editor struck a real chord with me
since I think the whole magazine needs an editor. Here
someone is just a little too impressed with himself and with the fact that he is an historian. The macro
problem with the article, for us boobs who aren't
historians, is that it labors for 25 pages to make
the obvious--or at least simply stated--point that
Lincoln was a politician, not a plaster saint or a
philosopher, and ought to be judged accordingly.
Fine. But are all these nit-picking minutiae
considered by the author or the editors to be a suitable statement on the occasion of Lincoln's
200th anniversary (as opposed to the annual convention
of the historians' society), such as one would expect
to find in a journal of politics and the arts that
is intended for an intelligent but general audience?
And wouldn't it have had more relevance for today
if instead of parsing 150-year-old speeches and
letters it drew some lessons from all these books
(and others) about Lincoln that were applicable to
the present and especially, for obvious reasons,
to the racial and other expectations placed on
President Obama? That, not an historian's extended
hissy-fit, would have been a reason for devoting half
a magazine to the legacy of Abraham Lincoln.
"Better to stay quiet and be thought a fool than to pick up your pen and prove it."
Advice that even a Harvard professor might find useful.
"Better to stay quiet and be thought a fool than to pick up your pen and prove it."
Advice that even a Harvard professor might find useful.
While as an author and letter writer, who has been taken to task by those whom I have criticized, I sympathize with Professor Wilentz's desire to clear his name in his response, I do not agree with his ad hominem attacks on his critics. They responded to a rather harsh, pointed, not all that courteous slam on their work. They, but Gates, noted what I noticed: Wilentz chose to spend considerable space at the end on Obama and was neither objective, nor consistent with his call for seeing politicians as politicians. In other words, he is hypocritical for praising Lincoln as a politician and condemning Obama for much the same activity. In brief, Prof. Wilentz, you reap what you sow. I thank ... view full comment
While as an author and letter writer, who has been taken to task by those whom I have criticized, I sympathize with Professor Wilentz's desire to clear his name in his response, I do not agree with his ad hominem attacks on his critics. They responded to a rather harsh, pointed, not all that courteous slam on their work. They, but Gates, noted what I noticed: Wilentz chose to spend considerable space at the end on Obama and was neither objective, nor consistent with his call for seeing politicians as politicians. In other words, he is hypocritical for praising Lincoln as a politician and condemning Obama for much the same activity. In brief, Prof. Wilentz, you reap what you sow. I thank the responses from all but Gates for enlightening me about Wilentz's outspoken support for the Clintons. I cannot help but wonder if the author of Chants Democratic was always this accommodating to establishment racism (the Clintons post SC and in PA, Lincoln at all times) or it is his long tenure at Princeton that has nourished such opinions.
Very interesting essay, although undercut somewhat by Wilentz's intemperate and condescending comments.
Very interesting essay, although undercut somewhat by Wilentz's intemperate and condescending comments.
Bravo Sean Wilentz. A brilliant and compelling original essay. A much justified and thoroughly effective drubbing of your opponents.
Bravo Sean Wilentz. A brilliant and compelling original essay. A much justified and thoroughly effective drubbing of your opponents.
Professor Wilentz has done his readership a great service by putting these new Lincoln writings in the broader context of what has happened to American historical scholarship in the last 40 years. Indeed if anything he has understated his case. Because of the obsessive interest in marginal and excluded groups, the claim that "culture"--which really means the purported prejudice of elite groups--is more important than any political process to understanding the past, and lastly because of sheer laziness among many academics, students at elite institutions--even history majors--are not getting any chance to learn how our political system has actually worked in the past--a necessity, one s ... view full comment
Professor Wilentz has done his readership a great service by putting these new Lincoln writings in the broader context of what has happened to American historical scholarship in the last 40 years. Indeed if anything he has understated his case. Because of the obsessive interest in marginal and excluded groups, the claim that "culture"--which really means the purported prejudice of elite groups--is more important than any political process to understanding the past, and lastly because of sheer laziness among many academics, students at elite institutions--even history majors--are not getting any chance to learn how our political system has actually worked in the past--a necessity, one should think, if they are to understand how it works today. He also properly stressed the tone of moral superiority that pervades so much current historical work. Yes, Abraham Lincoln (and Franklin Roosevelt) made a great many private comments that would shock a contemporary history department meeting, and rightly so; but that did not prevent them from doing their nation a great deal of good.
Now for two specific points. Jefferson, first of all, was a great enough thinker to write "All men are created equal," while at the same time believing that black men (yes, men--and women) were inferior in many ways to whites. He belonged to a generation that brilliantly combined idealism and, as they saw it, realism. I find the idea that he was more or less consciously lying about his beliefs when he wrote that line preposterous.
Another point that has not been mentioned concerns the Emancipation Proclamation, and it's one I would like to see more thoroughly explored. It concerns what might be called the Constitutional origins of the Proclamation. I was quite astonished to learn some years ago, reading the fine book, "Arguing about Slavery," by William Lee Miller, that John Quincy Adams had predicted how emancipation would come about decades before the fact. He imagined two possible scenarios--either a widespread slave rebellion, or secession--that would lead to federal intervention in the South--and he anticipated that the President would use THE WAR POWER to emancipate the slaves. That is exactly what Lincoln did, and although I lack the nineteenth-century expertise to be certain, I find it difficult to believe that Adams was the only anti-slavery politician to have raised this possibility. If anyone can point me to more data I would appreciate it.
David Kaiser, historian