Rightie Pundit Who Published Faked Lincoln Quote Is Back -- But Lincoln Expert Smacks Him Down
February 22, 2007 -- 4:57 PM EST // // Post a Comment
Via this excellent column by Greg Mitchell, it looks as if Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is back on the Lincoln beat again. And the results, it must be said, are unsightly indeed.
You remember Gaffney. He's the prominent conservative Washington Times columnist who got roundly pilloried for publishing an infamously fake Lincoln quote last week in his Times column.
Now Gaffney's "back in the ring to take another swing," as the venerable ACDC lyric has it. In his latest column, Gaffney apologizes for the quote. But then he goes right ahead and continues suggesting that Lincoln's war conduct still nonetheless shows that current war opponents should be "held accountable" for their "dissent."
Given how often war boosters are throwing around the words of Lincoln these days, I thought it was time to check in with a real, live Lincoln expert. So I called up Harold Holzer, a Lincoln expert who's the author, most recently, of the book "Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President."
Holzer's take? Gaffney's historically anology doesn't hold up. At all. It's wrong, wrong, wrong.
First, here's Gaffney's latest:
I regret the error and should, instead, have used the following, verbatim excerpt from a letter President Lincoln wrote in June 1863, as Robert E. Lee's army was on the march north to the fateful battle of Gettysburg. Mr. Lincoln wrote this letter after the arrest of a leading Confederate sympathizer legislator (or "Copperheads" as they were then known), U.S. Rep. Clement L. Vallandigham, Ohio Democrat. It forcefully explains the commander in chief's thinking about the latitude the Constitution affords to "silence" anti-war "agitators" whose conduct "damages the Army" and threatens to leave the nation without the military means to "suppress" its enemies...It is fitting that we reflect carefully on Abe Lincoln's insights and strong words, not just because this is the time of year we celebrate his remarkable life and momentous presidency. His views are all the more salient as congressional "agitators" once again justify their vehement opposition to the incumbent president's war efforts with denunciations of "a wicked Administration of a contemptible Government." Now, as then, they threaten the adequacy of the military force needed to "suppress" a violent insurgency. Whether we choose to recognize it or not, today as in 1863, the very "life of the nation" hangs in the balance if we fail to defeat the coming nexus of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Islamofascists...
Abraham Lincoln understood the difference between constructive dissent and treacherous agitation. There is no mistaking his determination to "silence" the latter through means he judged to be constitutional.
So what does Holzer, our expert, think of this? First, note Gaffney's application of the word "agitators" to current war critics. This inadvertently points to the most obvious difference between then and now: As Holzer points out, the Civil War took place here and the Iraq war constitutes a war abroad.. "This is completely different," Holzer says. "One is a state of rebellion, the other is a state of war. The Constitution has different provisions for a state of rebellion. Lincoln is always used as an example for those who want to argue for repression at home [now], but the context is completely different."
Holzer continued: "In fact, it's very hard to imagine another President or leader being as tolerant of dissent as Lincoln was. Lincoln is still the only head of state in the world to submit himself to an election during a revolution, during a rebellion, during a Civil War."
Finally, Holzer concludes, there actually were Congressional dissenters during the Civil War who went unprosecuted by Lincoln. "There was absolutely Congressional dissent during the Civil war. There was a Committee on the Conduct of the War that held hearings, complained about the war, issued disobliging reports. They weren't `silenced' by Lincoln.'"
One last thought from Holzer: "Lincoln had his own Murthas."
That's a good one.
Anyway, there it is. Have at it.
Update: Glenn Greenwald, who blew the whistle on the original Gaffney fakery, has much more on him today.
To visit the homepage of this blog, where you can see many more posts, click here.