Abraham_Lincoln_and_the_Second_American_Revolution_Article_Review

In James M. McPherson’s Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, McPherson describes how the Civil War changed over time, and how Abraham Lincoln changed with the war. McPherson suggested that Lincoln could be viewed as a “conservative revolutionary,” and proposed that there were three main ways in which Lincoln as a revolutionary leader was seen as. The first way that McPherson describes the Civil War as a revolution was “the frequent invocation of the right of revolution by southern leaders to justify their secession.” (p.24) This means that the real revolution of the Civil War era lied in the secession of the South. McPherson says that according to the South, their rebellion just exercising the right to rebel as so greatly portrayed by the revolutionary forefathers in 1776, and that it was not necessarily a revolution, but rather a counterrevolution to the revolution the North was creating with abolition. On the other hand, the North saw the secession as a “wicked exercise,” and that a successful secession would make the experiment of a government of the people and by the people a “laughing stock of the world.” McPherson suggests that if the secession was viewed as a revolution from the South, then Lincoln’s plans to keep the Union in tact were conservative. However, if it was a counterrevolution that the South carried out against the North’s revolution, then Lincoln was indeed a revolutionary with his abolition and civil rights movements. The second way in which McPherson describes the Civil War as revolutionary is in the abolition of slavery. He puts Lincoln into the category of ‘definitely revolutionary’ in this one. McPherson explains how the North’s goal at first was just to preserve the Union—as well as Lincoln’s. Although he would’ve liked to have slavery abolished right away, in 1861 Lincoln “couldn’t act officially on his private judgment [on] the moral question of slavery.” Therefore, he at first took on a conservative role by keeping the war limited and stating that since secession was illegal, the South was technically still part of the Union. But the times changed. By 1862 the Union had fledged a total war, declaring the South their enemy, and could thus confiscate any property, including slaves. The war was no longer to preserve the union but to abolish slavery. Slaves had become “allies of the North” and the goal was “to destroy the institution that had caused the war in the first place.” (p.31) Thus, Lincoln’s position also changed with the war. He was now a revolutionary, with the goal to destroy slavery and create a Union free from it. As McPherson puts it, “he was more radical that Washington of Jefferson or any of the leaders of the first revolution.” (p.36) The third and final way the McPherson regards the war as a revolution is how it “destroyed not only slavery but also the social structure of the old South.” (p.36) After the Civil War, the South was left faced with problems, debt, and inferiority to the North. The North’s wealth and power grew significantly, while the South’s decreased. This brought some major changes to government and society, including an abundance of new laws passed (in the North’s favor), and the social order of modern-day capitalism, which would forever obliterate the old structure of plantation economies. These major changes in America were undoubtedly revolutionary, which McPherson states “Lincoln was one of the principal [sic] architects of this capitalist revolution.” (p.40) McPherson’s essay contained plenty of useful information for me as a student to reflect on. It goes in depth to reveal information about Lincoln and the Civil War that my textbook might have omitted. I learned how Abraham Lincoln’s position changed from conservative to revolutionary, and how. This is useful to my American history studies because I can see how the Civil War really played out, and just what our great American leader did in order to establish civil rights.