Lincoln's Lessons

Abstract

Abraham Lincoln’s first Message to Congress is his most underappreciated address. Other speeches mattered more in terms of persuading, inspiring, or shaping the course of events. But few explain so clearly and so thoroughly Lincoln’s conception of the Common-Wealth: its legal structure, its place in history, and its distributions and concentrations of power.

At more than 6,000 words, his message was long. It reads like a cross between an academic lecture, an appellate brief, and a religious sermon. And its topics are among those that remain the most divisive and consequential facing our common-wealth today: federalism; race; liberty versus security; executive power; American exceptionalism; and the style of a common-wealth’s leader.

In this essay, we use Abraham’s Lincoln’s message, delivered on July 4, 1861, to explore what Kentucky’s most famous son thought America meant and should mean with regard to many of his era’s most vital issues, as important now as they were then.

Keywords: Abraham Lincoln, Commonwealth