Lincoln’s Selective Reading Of The Founding Fathers In His Major Speeches In The1850s

Abraham Lincoln is regarded as one of the greatest presidents in American history. He guided the nation through civil war, defended federal sovereignty, and abolished slavery—the unfinished task left over by the founding generation. During the antebellum1850s, the sectional strife over slavery grew increasingly bitter following the rapid succession of key events such as the passage of Kansas-Nebraska Act in1854and the Dred Scott decision in1857. Senator Stephen A. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act opened up the possibility to introduce slavery into new federal territories; Chief Justice Taney pronounced in the Scott vs. Sandford case that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were both not applicable to the African-Americans. It was against the backdrop of polarization over the slavery issue that Lincoln revived his political career and joined the Republican Party. He seized opportunities to articulate his antislavery sentiments and anti-slavery extension policy in five critical public occasions. In his speeches, he put forward his interpretation of the topic of slavery in the language of the founding fathers’thoughts and politics. Lincoln’s narrative of the founding fathers fitted into his anti-slavery extension policy, which was aligned with the majority view on slavery in the Republican Party. Lincoln’s speeches resulted in sweeping successes in local and national elections and marked milestones on his political road to the presidency. As an emerging leader in the Republican Party, Lincoln was nominated for presidential candidacy in1860s’ election and was soon elected to be the16th president of the United States.This thesis closely examines the text of Lincoln’s five public speeches delivered on his political road to presidency between the year1854and1860. By doing so, the author attempts to provide a detailed analysis of Lincoln’s interpretation of the founding fathers in his speeches. Then, the author aims to analyze the incompleteness of Lincoln’s account of the past and demonstrate how Lincoln’s selective reading of the founding fathers helped to promote himself as a political candidate.The thesis is broadly organized into five chapters. The first chapter introduces Lincoln’s historic legacies and briefly outlines Lincoln’s public utterances as the primary subject for textual examination in the thesis. Chapter Ⅱ reviews current research discoveries from two different perspectives. The first half presents the academic world’s two main contrasting views of Lincoln’s relationship with the founding fathers. The latter half considers the latest studies on Lincoln’s approach to the founding fathers by current founding fathers scholars. The end of Chapter Ⅱ introduces the significance and value of the research this thesis will contribute. Chapter Ⅲ first chronicles crucial political events in the1850s and then analyzes Stephen Douglas’and Chief Justice Taney’s interpretations of the founding generation—providing the essential backdrop of Lincoln’s narrative of the founding fathers in five of his major speeches. Chapter Ⅲ then goes further to make a detailed analysis of Lincoln’s narrative of the founding generation in each of his five speeches respectively; namely, the Peoria Speech, the Dred Scott Speech, the House-Divided Speech, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates and the Cooper Union Speech. Chapter IV points out the incompleteness of Lincoln’s view of the founding father generation through a detailed discussion of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and the Constitutional Convention. This chapter also goes deeper to consider the relationship between his selective reading of the past and his then increasing political popularity. Chapter V., the conclusion, briefly reviews Lincoln’s selective reading of the founding generation and its impact on his prewar political success, as well as the implications for his later achievements after American Civil War.