Lincoln's 'humor' is also a subject of comment in Strozier (12). However, he calls it bawdy (sighting
different examples). While it may be that I have been tainted (by the 20th century, by my personal
experiences, etc.), the humor seems to me neither bawdy nor out of place. But anal!? Especially in respect
to Strozier, I can only wonder at his reaching for complaint (or is it bending over backwards?). That
"coarse and mean-spirited" character in Lincoln is documented by Fleming in regard to several other
incidents in his life, including what amounts to a sort of "Dear John" letter. Jaffa answers this comment
with a quote from Basler, the editor of Lincoln's COLLECTED WORKS:

	"To find in this letter, as well as in the other letters to Mary, evidence that
	Lincoln was trifling with her affections requires a degree of animosity or
	naivete' which but few students of Lincoln have possessed." (13)

In actuality, the entire Fleming  piece should probably be dismissed in exactly that manner. Jaffa
recognizes that the dilemna for Fleming is a "scorn of politics as a matter of conviction," a scorn that
reaches to Lincoln's view that above all slavery was wrong. He wonders how Fleming could from this
ideological perspective justify even opposition to Hitler's Nazism, and of the Fleming remark that
"Lincoln devastated a third of the country with war ..." due to his "intellectual theory" that slavery was
wrong, he suggests that "the invincible ignorance of this assertion can be excused only by the fact that the
ignorance is invincible." (14) Neither slavery nor its extension was the actual reason for either secession
or war, but rather "a repudiation of the role of the constitutional majority, the very basis of all free
government." (15) And neither was it the slavery issue upon which President Lincoln waged the effort to
suppress the insurrection to overthrow the Constitution.

     The late Wayne State University professor of history, Alfred Kelley, in his  text on Constitutional
history, expresses a rather dark view of President Lincoln. He refers to Lincoln's conduct as a
Constitutional Dictatorship (AMERICAN CONSTITUTION). Even though he did temper that
interpretation in some limited ways, Kelley would seem to be in utter underestimation of the threat to the
Union, Republic, and Constitution, posed at the Civil War which Lincoln acted to defend against. (Of
course, it is probably not the case that he was, but his interpretation of Lincoln would have to be premised
on such sentiments for them to be held valid). Had Lincoln not acted as he did -- a manner which others
such as Hendrick in his BULWARK OF THE REPUBLIC have contended was rather moderate and at
every point perfectly in step with Constitutional justification (Hay and Nicolay concur) -- and the Taneys,
Douglasses, and Davis' prevailed, the nation might have become many countries or it might have been
only temporarily preserved in much altered and unacceptable form. Kelley may have some less than
favorable views of Mr. Lincoln's exercises (or excesses) of executive authority, but necessity often tempers
freedom. It may indeed dictate freedom. In fact, the juxtaposition of freedom and necessity is probably
central to interpretation -- and misinterpretation --- of what freedom really is. There can be no freedom to
inhibit progress or undermine the Constitutional order that is the wellspring of freedom -- such would be
license.

     Kelley goes to the extreme of labeling Lincoln a dictator and attributing to him responsibility for
secession and war. The later he seems to base on Lincoln's outrageous policy of resisting secession! The
war that resulted was not, as he indicates, for mere nationalism, but for the preservation of the
Constitutional Nationalism of the Marshall Court and Hamilton, to promote the basis of capitalist growth
and an expanding capital intensive economy. It was more than simple self-preservation. The kernel of the
conflict was embedded in decades of questions, as this essay has attempted to portray. Kelley faults
Lincoln for his tardy recall of Congress. Given the times, conditions, and precedents, that may be quite
unfair. It may be, too, that Lincoln, as others did, underestimated the secessionist effort and hoped that the
crisis would pass, or it may lie in an awareness on his part of how the Congress would, as it did,
'complicate' the war effort.

     The fact that the Habeas Corpus Act was not passed by Congress until 1863 may reflect that, as well as
the fact that there was constant hope for a termination of the crisis, there was but limited use of the
suspension authority especially outside the border states until that time, that there was general support for
his actions, and that definitive court statement against the matter was only then necessary to counteract.
Even when the Act passed, Advocate General Joseph Holt ruled it did not apply in cases where prisoners
were held under martial law -- in such circumstances, the executive remained unfettered. And further, the
threat to the internal security of the Union was by that time becoming more and more apparent. The Court
had, as Kelley points up, upheld the President's right to judge the threat himself in the 1827 case of
Martin v. Mott. But it might be argued that there are really two aspects to be considered here, and while
they are essentially indivisible in character, Mr. Lincoln and his colleagues would have to, as they did,
deal with both of them. If it could be clearly established that there was, in fact, substantive basis for the
actions against dissidents that were pursued, there would still have to be exhibited a genuine constitutional
basis, in law and in theory, as jurisdiction. 

     Burton Hendrick insists that Mr. Lincoln had no disrespect for the Constitution. That is putting it
mildly. What he felt did involve disrespect for a particular decision and Taney's handywork generally.
Particularly because of the Dred Scott decision, "one of his loftiest ambitions was to appoint enough anti-
slavery judges to secure a reversal ..," Hendrick writes. (16) It was precisely because Lincoln held the
Constitution in such high regard that he would entertain thoughts of 'packing' the court, Hendrick holds:

	"No President took more care that all of his acts should conform to this
	fundamental law." (17)

Lincoln even went further and rebuked Seward for speaking of a "higher law than the Constitution "in the
matter of prohibiting slavery in the territories. And yet because of his acts of emancipation, calls for
volunteers, and suspension of habeas corpus writ, he has not infrequently been portrayed as a despot, a
military tyrant or dictator, by those who could see no constitutional warrant. But for Lincoln, there quite
simply could be no "higher law than the Constitution." Thoreau might have argued that men had a duty to
disobey law that stood in violation of what was higher law, but Lincoln would disagree, and base that
argument on a lack of understanding of  the Constitution by Thoreau. (Thoreau, for his part, was perfectly
willing to pay the price of even imprisonment for his passive resistance, thus acknowledging perhaps a
fundamental faith in the order of law, hence to effect its change).

     The question is identical to the interpretation of contract developed by the Marshall Court in order to
promote economic progress. That, after all, was the fundamental point -- the Constitution, through its
governmental institutions, was to promote sound policy to foster economic growth and development. That,
of course, required capital formation. The contract had to be defined in such a manner as to enable it to be
useful in structuring corporation as well as commerce which would be the vehicles of greater capital
accumulation in a capital scarce nation. The series of Marshall Court rulings aimed at that objective has
been reviewed, in which the Chief Justice and Joseph Story especially deliberately went about constructing
a distinction between Public and Private Corporations (or Contract) and between the moral and legal
obligation components of contract.  While they had no problem with regulation of public corporations,
which were eventually specifically identified, the States could not interfere with private corporations --
once the charter was granted, the contract was perpetual and could not be altered unilaterally by the
legislature. Moreover, they elaborated a further distinction regarding the nature of the contract itself.
There was a legal obligation in contract that grew out of and was based upon an inherent moral
obligation. In fact, by the time of the Green v. Biddle decision, Story had addressed the element of the
moral obligation as not being part of the contract at all, in effect, though nevertheless underlying it and
subsuming it. States had no power to impair the moral obligation, but could affect the legal obligations on
the face of the contract by altering remedy, but only in that way. 

     If this posed a major dilemna for the Federalists and Whigs (except perhaps judges as the supreme
arbitrars of such things) because while this separated the moral obligation beyond legal reach, one of their
guiding objectives was to enforce the moral order of their capitalist republicanism. There is, in fact, no
dilemna here at all. Was not Lincoln saying that the Constitution was the social compact, or at least the
public expression of that very private compact made by every citizen, every one of the people, in creating
and maintaining the Republic? That social compact was the premier contract, out of which all other
contracts must flow. Although it was public in its Constitutional documentary form, it was very private in
its form as a personal assent by the citizenry individually. Perhaps the Articles had been a Public
Contract, but the Constitution was not. While the Marshall Court rulings had placed the moral obligation
out of political society (perhaps even into the state of nature), and the legislatures could not tamper with
the state of nature or laws of nature, and while when they had in mind protecting the contract they also
had in mind protecting the political economic character of the Compact. There is not fundamental
contradiction in the one being contributory to the other. The economy, the society, the government, the
Constitution, the Compact, depend upon that -- they are, like the Union, inseparable. In Lincoln's
situation, the Constitution was the expression of the social compact. As he told Seward, there was no
higher law. Viewed as the private contract that it is, the States had no power to address or impair the
'moral obligation' entailed, while they might alter the remedy. The Constitution could be changed or
amended through the established procedures, but the terms of the contract compact could not be altered by
them. There could be no breach of  the contract itself -- the promise itself was not, could not, be
addressed. The contract was the remedy. Therefore, there could be no secession because a contract was
perpetual and secession would be State impairment of a private contract, the social compact Constitution -
- a violation of the spirit of the Constitution, the establishment clause, the commerce clause. Nor could
any person have the right to hold the Constitution violate. Of course, Thoreau, as King, would
acknowledge the necessity of accepting 'punishment' for their acts. Such was the character of their extra-
Constitutional remedy. Besides, the objective for King was always to secure federal enforcement of
constitutional rights. This does not necessarily mean that for Lincoln there was no 'natural law' beyond the
Constitution; only that the Constitution reflected it and the way to fulfill it.

     In the years of the Taney Court, there had been alteration of that legalism of contract, if only by
refinement. His order would be based on the community interests of both State's Rights and finance
capital. Lincoln would no doubt hold that Taney had violated the compact. One wonders if Taney would
have gone so far as to hold secession constitutional, if he could have done so -- Fehrenbacher calls him
sympathetic to the enemy (18) -- but obviously Lincoln would be reflecting the developmental view of
contract set forth by the Marshall Court in so holding. His legal training had been in both Marshall and
Blackstone, and these were fundamentally commensurable with Carey's political economy. The contract
could not be violated. The compact could not be broken or thusly altered. The Constitution could not be
abrogated. Secession was illegal. Whatever action had to be taken within the spirit of the Constitution to
preserve it and all it stood for was not only warranted and justifiable, but mandatory and incumbent upon
a President to carry forth. And while his position did not always carry the day during his long tenure on
the court, Joseph Story repeatedly said as much. During the War of 1812 and after, he enunciated a theory
in defense of martial law when there was conspiracy to subvert the government by force, or even under
circumstances where arms were not actually employed. He even extended his definition of conspiratorial
treason to include overt and covert efforts against the general and national concern, resistance or
opposition to the execution of U.S. law, or to efforts at dismemberment of the Union (19). In addressing
the Thomas Dorr situation in the 1840's, he reiterated the opinion that social disorder had to be prevented
as a vital challenge to the necessary social order of republican society (20)

     Both Woodward's and Kelley's views of Lincoln, while they cast some doubt upon the popular symbol
of the man, are themselves on somewhat shaky foundation. In fact, it can be argued that if the popular
symbolic character of Mr. Lincoln does not weather them completely, they do not substantively undermine
his place in the political culture. Moreover, Lincoln in reality rises above these arguments to emerge as a
paramount figure in at least the implementation aspects of the political theory he represents. Hofstader
perhaps comes the closest. He begins to treat Lincoln from this perspective though he does not stay the
course:

	"As an economic thinker, Lincoln had a passion for the great average." (21)

He was of the middle class, an expression of the Protestant ethic, perhaps. He spoke for those Americans
who had raised themselves from the rank of hired workers to professionals or businessmen, and for the
ideology that subsumes. He quotes Lincoln:

	"There is no permanent class of hired laborers among us." (22)

Here is Lincoln clearly speaking again of raising the value of one's labor -- the essence of his thought. But
whereas Hofstader sees a pro-labor, even quasi-socialist element through Lincoln (23), he does not see the
broader implications of his positions in terms of enhanced labor power. He suggests that if Lincoln had
lived, he would have witnessed a separation of labor from its tools -- something he sees as a key element
in their alienation (24). Perhaps Lincoln would have come to see his party as the 'jackal' under such
circumstances, but here, again, Hofstader misses the key point of Lincoln's political economy.

     Hofstader does offer some commentary relevant to Kelley regarding the war effort. he writes:

       	"[The war] was, of course, a war to preserve the Union; but the Union itself
	was a means to an end. The Union meant free popular government, 'government
	of the people, by the people, for the people.' But popular government is
	something deeper and more valuable than a mere system of political organization:
	it is a system of social life that gives the common man a chance. Here Lincoln
	returns again to his favorite theme -- the stupendous value to mankind of the
	free labor system." (25)

He quotes Lincoln on the war:

	"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 a government whose
	leading objective 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 for
	all an unfettered start, and a fair chance in the race of life ..." (26)

     This was a war against the rights of all working people (by the Confederacy); of all "who toil up from
poverty ..." (27). He provides one direct contradiction to Kelley: Lincoln was chastened and not
intoxicated by power (28).  Lincoln did much more that 'free the slaves' or 'save the Union.' Indeed, the
Union had to be preserved not only out of commitment to the nation and the Constitution, but out of his
dedication to the fundamental principles he was applying, upon which the Constitutional Republic was
couched and molded.  The Lincoln Presidency actually was able to 'use' the war crisis to advance
industrialization and economic development. He re-instituted the best version he could of the old national
bank in his National Banking System, and directed the credit and Greenbacks that flowed from it not only
to finance the war effort per se, but through government funded debt to fuel a great variety of other
initiatives, including railroads, telegraphs, and iron steamboat productive capacity, development of the
'Great American Desert' through the Homestead and Morrill Acts and the Department of Agriculture, to
turn it into a breadbasket, and infrastructure construction, as well as industry and manufacturing, and
more (the promotion of armaments through mass production, and including such new technologies as
'rifling,' rear-loading, multiple shot, screw propeller powered iron steamships, steam power itself, etc).
Lincoln's 'doctrine of necessity' in this pursuit was more than military success, although that was
necessarily subsumed. The defeat of the Confederate insurgency to save the Union was more than mere
national preservation. The nation-state arose in modern times hand in hand with the renaissance as the
instrument of policy built upon the idea of progress. While such was not a peculiarly American domain, or
even a uniquely western one, it is certainly one that marks the development of the American Republic, and
has permeated our political culture ever since. More than that, it represents the 'spirit' of what the
American Zeitgeist has always been about, and thus embodies the essential character of our civil religion.

      One can find semblances of it in a range of other situations encompassing Colbert, the Humboldts,
Frederich List, and others (including as recently as John Reuff in France after the Second World War). In
our history, it was the essence of the American System programmatic orientation reaching from Hamilton
to Lincoln, as otherwise argued here, and it is also central to at least FDR's Arsenal of Democracy period,
Eisenhower, some aspects of Kennedy, and  much of Reagan. That notion of necessity to Lincoln is what
Hamilton called 'the productive powers of labor,' Clay termed 'artificial labor.' Poe referred to as the
'quality of genius,' and Marx branded 'labor power' -- a distinctly different notion than Marx's labor theory
of value, and one that he seems to have lifted from Franklin and Liebniz.  Human development "has been
characterized by willful innovation in the modes of producing [the] means of existence -- innovations
which have ... increased  population and the amount of energy available to and consumed by society ...":
	
	"All great advances of humanity have been due to the intervention of humanists
	who have understood ... that man has the creative qualities to deliberately master
	the laws of nature and effect his own evolution ... The material basis for solving all 
	the problems of human existence must be located in technological and cultural
	progress.  

There must be an increasing number of human beings available and trained to work
	on those problems, and each individual's power over nature (his or her 'productivity'
	as defined by assimilation of new, more efficient scientific technological discoveries)
	must be increasing ...

	What appears to be finite limits in one productive mode compel man to make the
	breakthroughs which will bring him to the next, more advanced mode, thus
	redefining the domain of natural resources in a qualitative way." (29)

     There was a moral duty to extend the potential relative population density -- what Marx and
Luxemburg called expanded reproduction -- increasing levels of energy throughput flux in the biosphere.
The nation had to be safeguarded as the agent of such activity, and to the extent that this was the
substance of our Revolution, Constitution, and Republic, it thus had to be preserved and advanced. Hence,
the root of Lincoln's view of the Constitution as the highest law, and of his entire scope of operations as
necessity. When Lincoln spoke of the United States as man's best hope, this was what he meant, and the
continued advancement of humanity rested upon success of the effort.  If war does not seem to fit that
perspective well, while there clearly are justifications for war grounded in such an ideology, Lincoln was
not really fighting a 'war' in the strictest sense. What he was trying to do was end one -- the insurgency.
That probably prolonged the conflict and prompted Lincoln to take a strategy from early on of waiting for
the South to strike.  We can also clearly see therein Lincoln's long-term opposition to involuntary
servitude at the same time that the necessity of preserving the Union without freeing any slaves is obvious.
There was an absolute moral imperative for Lincoln to conduct himself at every stage pretty much as he
did. 

     The analysis of capitalism in England upon which Marx based his critique is in this way one totally
unfitted to analysis of the American situation, except to the extent that the Jeffersonians and Jacksonians
promulgated Thomas Malthus and physiocracy. In the Lincoln case, the state must be viewed not as an
instrument of repression, but as the catalyst of such dynamic change. The ratio S'/ C + V which is found
in Marx and Luxemburg is most useful in evaluating and interpreting Mr. Lincoln; i.e., the enhancement
of the creation of wealth operating under Spinoza's dictum that there are no limits within which the
human mind need be confined. Lincoln in this sense must be interpreted as ascending Dante's staircase
toward his apotheosis -- except today it would be an escalator and tomorrow perhaps a transporter: "Beam
me up, Scotty," so we can "boldly go where no one has gone before."

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