ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND A HOUSE DIVIDED Today is the second in the series of biographical sermons that make connections between the Lenten Gospel lessons and the struggles of certain modern figures. This morning we are going to remember the struggles of Abraham Lincoln. Herod out to kill Jesus? Abraham Lincoln had to arrive by stealth in Washington just a few days before his inauguration. There were serious threats against his life. And the whole nation was asking, how could we have elected this country lawyer to be president during the worst crisis in our history? He lost his last election to the House of Representatives, lost his bid for the Senate. He has no experience in foreign affairs. Just before he took office South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Texas had seceded from the Union. Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia followed suit. Border States were deeply divided and threatening. England and France are about to join with the south. Surely we are doomed! The Republican Party which nominated Lincoln was only four years old, born from the ashes of the Whigs, cobbled together with maverick Democrats, and a party of people who opposed immigration called the “Know Nothings.” Imagine, Know Nothings in the Republican party! Background: Yes Lincoln was born in a log cabin to an illiterate father and a tender mother who taught him to read. He devoured books, being almost completely self taught. Shakespeare, Byron, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Aesop’s Fables, The King James Bible, and finally law. Story teller: The lawyers in Illinois followed the judge around on the circuit court. They ate together, roomed together, and spent evenings together around the pot bellied stove. While Lincoln was hesitant and sometimes clumsy in court, he held court every evening with an endless supply of stories, most of them true, until he had a congenial relationship with just about every lawyer and leader in the state. Through stories he learned to turn aside bitter words. Career: Lincoln had been elected to the House of Representatives, served one term and then was defeated for re-election due to his opposition to the war with Mexico. He went back to lawyering until the race for the Senate in 1856, where he opposed Stephen Douglas of the Democrats. They toured the state together, debating and scoring points on each other. People began to feel like they were seeing a race for president rather than Senate. Four years later, they were right, but in the Senate election Lincoln lost the official vote although he won the popular vote. So when the Republicans got together to nominate their candidate for President in 1860, everybody expected William Henry Seward to be the man: former governor of New York, long standing senator, famous orator, backed by New York boss Thurlow Weed. So confident in the outcome was he that during the months before the convention, he took a vacation to Europe. Opposing him were Governor Salmon Chase of Ohio and Edward Bates, Representative and later Judge, of Missouri. All three men had national prominence and were famous for their opposition to slavery. But there was one other candidate. He had put together the Republicans in Illinois, and made a few speeches around the north east, and somehow managed to play sectional rivals against each other to get the convention held in his home state. His name was Lincoln. When the smoke cleared after the convention, everybody said it; different state, different candidate. Lincoln despised slavery, but believed that the institution was about to die of itself. His public position, and on this he was adamant, was that slavery could not be allowed to spread to the territories and gain a second life. With such a stance, he was a more acceptable candidate to the border states. He also promoted policies on tariffs and trade that made him acceptable to industrial states. So the election was held, a rematch of Lincoln against Stephen Douglas, and with the help of those whom he had defeated for the nomination, this time Lincoln won. The newspapers mocked him as he traveled to Washington. He was too inexperienced to be President. He was too awkward to be President. He was too ugly to be President. President Buchanan left the nation in shambles. Fort Sumter in the South was defended by 60 soldiers on starvation rations. The capital was completely vulnerable. The country was divided north and south, but the country was also deeply divided north and north. The abolitionists fought with unionists who also despised slavery but wanted to make compromises to preserve the Union…almost as much as they fought with the southerners. When Lincoln tried to be conciliator with the Border States, abolitionists denounced him. When he reaffirmed his commitment to never let slavery spread, unionists denounced him. And Lincoln called to his cabinet the men who were thought by all to be his betters: Seward and Chase and Bates and others. He endured their sanctimonious debates. He endured and then fired popular but corrupt contractors, generals who wouldn’t fight, generals who couldn’t fight. With everybody trying to make policy without consulting him. And those who stayed by his side learned to respect him as he grew into the Presidency. It was at the end of the first year that one of these stated: “He is one of the best men God ever created.” After numerous losses in the field, the Army of the Potomac managed to eek out a victory. People were singing: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Then Lincoln finally was on solid enough ground for him to announce that on January 1, 1863 he would issue what has come to be known as the Emancipation Proclamation, the down payment on complete emancipation to come. The word was out. The whole country waited in expectation on that day. Would Lincoln have the courage to do it? Late in the afternoon Lincoln sat down at his desk, picked up the pen, then put it back down and remarked that, after shaking hands all day at the White House New Year’ reception, people would look at his signature as weak and uncertain. Then he picked up the pen again and said: “If my name goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.” Then he signed. In Boston people had gathered in expectation at Tremont Temple, including Fredrick Douglas. Nearby in Music Hall, Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Oliver Wendell Homes, Sr. And after a day of celebrating Lincoln, they got back into their usual mode of criticizing him. Was ever a man so despised and reviled? Did ever a man labor so resolutely to protect those around him while they continually attempted to engineer their own destruction? I know one. He healed and taught and touched and lifted up those around him while his followers debated which one of them was the greatest. He was an equal opportunity target for the pietist Pharisees, the corrupt Sadducees, the jaded Pilate, and the incompetent Herod. And while his followers dallied, he marched as an army of one to Jerusalem to set them free. To set all of them free. We have to believe that Christ will gather us together as a hen gathers her brood. We have to believe that, although fear drives us apart, Christ brings us together. We have to believe that, although greed sets us at odds, Christ makes us a family. We have to believe. Or all is lost. We have to believe that Christ will protect us from those who would enslave our minds with fear and division. We have to believe that there are millions of Muslims who seek to live in salaam. We have to believe that there are hundred of thousands of emigrants who are here because they have accepted the invitation of our Statue of Liberty to “Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free” even when we have forgotten it. We have to believe that Jesus meant it when he said he had other sheep, not of this fold, and that all will be one. We have to believe. Or all is lost. So today I’m going to challenge you to faith. I’m going to challenge you to believe the scriptures. I’m going to challenge you to trust in the God who brings us together in Jesus Christ. So that we walk with him to Jerusalem to face the religious people who think they have a lock on truth. And the Herods in Massachusetts . And the Pilates in Washington. And all the other pompous people who think that they know more about how to treat folks than Jesus Christ. I’m going to challenge you to that faith. Because “our eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” |