Review of "How Abe Lincoln Lost the Black Vote: Lincoln and Emancipation in the African American Mind" by Allen C. Guelzo (Winter 2004)

Article Review: American History; 19th-20th Century;

Mar 14, 2023

Review: Allen C. Guelzo, “How Abe Lincoln Lost the Black Vote: Lincoln and Emancipation in the African American Mind,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 25, No. 1 (Winter 2004), 1-22.

Abraham Lincoln’s memory dots the landscape of American public memory. The Lincoln Memorial, the U.S. penny, the plethora of cities, towns, schools, and other public spaces dedicated to Lincoln’s memory illustrate the outsized influence that the man from Illinois has wielded on the historical memory.

Readers of this review likely are aware that Lincoln’s legacy over the past fifty years has become increasingly eroded. Lincoln has transformed from the “black man’s president” to quote Frederick Douglas, to a typical white supremacist. Lincoln has joined the growing circle of “canceled” historical figures in the American memory such as Washington, Jefferson, and most leaders of the 18th and 19th centuries. Rather than highlight the work of Lincoln to end slavery, critics emphasize failings and his perceived slowness to change. For many academics and laymen, Lincoln did little to help the cause of racial equality and was only forced to act by wartime necessity, rather than by religious or ideological demands.

Reading the Emancipation Proclamation / H.W. Herrick, del., J.W. Watts, sc., Library of Congress.

Dr. Allen Guelzo’s essay reflects a different era, written in the early 2000’s.1 His open support for Lincoln and barbs thrown at those who degrade the importance of the Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln’s role in crafting it clearly show this. Likely, his work would not be published in most academic journals today, but it remains an important topic to consider and reflect upon, particularly as scholars grapple with the modern historical narratives and ideas.

Guelzo’s main contention is that for almost a hundred years after Lincoln’s issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation both white and Black Americans viewed the document as a transformative moment in American history. He argues the Emancipation Proclamation further illustrated Lincoln’s commitment to helping the Black community access the rights and privileges afforded to white Americans by the United States Constitution. Lincoln transformed the war from saving the United States to creating a more perfect union without the stain of slavery. Guelzo demonstrates the high praise and near adoration that Lincoln held in the mind of the Black community throughout much of the turn of the century. Lincoln thus was a symbol of hope and freedom, a man to be admired and venerated.

One of the more fascinating, and most likely Guelzo’s most controversial efforts, is to trace the decline in popularity of Lincoln in the American mind over the course of the 20th century. Guelzo ties the decline in Lincoln’s popularity to a slow shift in American historical thinking tied to historians/authors such as W.E.B. DuBois, Lerone Bennett, and James Baldwin. Guelzo argues that the turn against Lincoln is in part inspired by “the desire for equality” always becoming “more insatiable as equality is greater.” (19) He argues many scholars have used the Emancipation Proclamation to show that all “racial politics that flow downstream from the proclamation” are “tainted.” (20) His most stinging critique comes in the final pages:

Lincoln and his proclamation once occupied a place of central importance in the minds of black and white Americans alike. And with good reason for his proclamation was the most socially revolutionary pronouncement on any American president, and it desires restoration to a position in the canon of African American testimonies to freedom and deliverance…Lincoln was, in many respects, our last Enlightenment politician, especially in the sense that he was guided, like the founders, by an Enlightenment politics of prudence. A major problem in understanding the Emancipation Proclamation is that this prudential politics was, even in Lincoln’s lifetime, being eroded by a romantic Kantian politics of absolutism, which allowed for no compromise with the demands of free will ,choice, and autonomy…The underlying question of Lincoln’s strategy in emancipation is not so much a problem of race or Lincoln’s timing or the pressure of the Civil War as it is an unsuspected problem in American intellectual history and the displacement of prudence by absolutism. (21)

Guelzo’s argument is striking, though not without its flaws. Guelzo, if arguing about academia and elements of the political left, is certainly correct that there has been a movement to critique and remove Lincoln from the narrative as the “Great Emancipator.”2 However, he oversteps by stating that the African American community is hegemonically guided or united in their beliefs. This is a problem throughout politics in the modern world. Minorities, particularly African Americans, are categorized and described as a block or a solid group, flattening the diversity of thought and ideology within the culture of Black America. Though Guelzo is not the only author to do this, the trend is one that needs to be ended. Another problem with Guelzo’s essay is his broad sweeping statements that obscure the reality of complicated societies with dueling perspectives. Furthermore the author’s pessimism obscures the continued defense of Lincoln by both layman and academics, while acknowledging the problematical ideas and views he held regarding race. Only reading Guelzo’s essay makes it appear that Lincoln has no modern supporters, a quite large exaggeration to be sure.

The author is correct in pointing to a growing trend to discard and reject the accomplishments of the past simply because the humans involved were imperfect and held views that do not align with our own. I also agree that some of this stems from beliefs that the American system is inherently a system that is ingrained with racist ideology and exploitation. However, I think in addition, the move from Lincoln has also come because of the academic rejection of “Great Man Histories.” I feel that there is a need to incorporate the best aspects of these types of histories with the modern social, cultural, and political histories that have done so much to enlighten us on the thoughts of the past. In sum, this essay provided an interesting exploration of history and historical memory and a detailed exploration into the roots of anti-Lincoln rhetoric among some of the academic elites.

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