Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Balkinization

Legal Commentary

: Balkinization

Obama as Abraham Lincoln

By Jack M. Balkin

Mark Twain in Letters From the Earth tells the story of a religious person who was advised by a priest to "imitate our Father in Heaven. Learn to be like him." After studying the Bible, the man in question decided that his best strategy would be to spread disease and pestilence, just as God apparently does in several passages in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. The priest, of course, indicated that this was not the right way to follow the path of the Lord, although he had some difficulty explaining which divine actions were a source of guidance and which were not.

This passage seems appropriate in light of very-soon-to be President Obama?s aspiration to follow in Lincoln?s footsteps. Presumably he does not mean that he will shortly embark on a military adventure under the misapprehension that the use of force will be short and relatively painless. We just had a president who imitated that facet of the Lincoln presidency. No doubt Carl Sandburg was overly romantic, but I?ve always admired his depiction of Lincoln the pardoner. On the other hand, a great many of my follow citizens clearly do not want the Obama Administration to follow that path. I suspect no one hopes habeas corpus is suspend, and few want a renewal of the draft (whether for military or compulsory public service). Citizens who have read Daniel Hamilton?s terrific book on confiscation during the Civil War are unlikely to approve of Lincoln?s conservatism on these matters (arguably his decisions contributed to some degree, probably small, to African-American impoverishment after the Civil War). We all applaud Lincoln?s commitment to freeing the slaves, but that does not translate into any consensus on the contemporary analogy to emancipation. In short, efforts to be like Lincoln in 2009 seem no more specific than advice to follow the path of the Biblical God. We could imagine a stunningly rotten Obama presidency where every decision was consistent with some action Lincoln took more the 150 years ago. To the extent people bother commenting on this post (written again, in approximately 10-15 minutes), I suspect the lack of a consensus on what following Lincoln means will be become apparent.

The presidency has many responsibilities. One of them is manipulating the symbols of the past to support present policy initiatives. We judge presidents on how well they perform that task. Article II does not also demand that the chief executive teach citizens to think critically about those symbols. That?s the job of those of who work in the academy. The Lincoln example is seductive, but the allure is in part because in contemporary constitutional culture, Lincoln can be cited for almost any policy one might champion. More generally, I suspect, successful presidencies are a bit sui generis. Imitating Lincoln or Washington may be a good recipe for invoking symbols that will be useful for a successful presidency. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, Obama will be judged by his distinctive qualities and practices and not to the extent he imitated Lincoln or anyone else. Which Lincoln he imitates will be far more interesting and important than mere invocation of the sixteenth president's most famous words.

Full post as published by Balkinization on January 20, 2009 (boomark / email).