September 2008

Lincoln, Law Day, love of liberty

Between his second and third debates with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858, Abraham Lincoln made a campaign appearance in Edwardsville on Sept. 11.

One sentence from the conclusion of Lincoln’s speech has been selected by the American Bar Association as representative of the spirit of Law Day. The theme next May 1 will be “A Legacy of Liberty: Celebrating Lincoln’s Bicentennial.”

The quotation included in the ABA announcement follows: “Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.”

That sentiment, which is appropriate for Law Day observance, certainly is not out of context, but Lincoln’s entire statement deserves to be considered. Here is what he said 150 years ago in Edwardsville.

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army.

These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle.

Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.

Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them.

Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.

Scott ruling dreaded

Lincoln’s point of view during the 1858 Senate campaign was based on absolute disgust and dismay with the Dred Scott decision.

In his first speech on the subject, given June 26, 1857, in Springfield, he explained that a divided Supreme Court held that a negro could not sue in federal court, and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories.

Lincoln strongly disagreed with the argument of Chief Justice Taney that the authors of the Declaration of Independence “did not intend to include negroes” in the statement that “all men are created equal.”

He said in Springfield that “The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged.”

Throughout his debates with Douglas, Lincoln repeatedly expressed the fear that a “second Dred Scott decision” could make slavery lawful in every state – “old as well as new, north as well as south.”

By dehumanizing the negro and making it “forever impossible for him to be but as the beasts of the field,” Lincoln suggested in his 1858 Edwardsville speech, there was the possibility of an uprising against slaveholders.

“(W)hen you have extinguished his soul, and placed him where the ray of hope is blown out in darkness like that which broods over the spirits of the damned; are you quite sure the demon which you have roused will not turn and rend you?”

Making Law Day plans

The ABA is encouraging bar associations throughout the nation to commemorate the 2009 bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth with incisive programs about his life.

“Lincoln, who devoted much of his adult life to the practice of law, was the quintessential American lawyer-president,” the Law Day brochure notes. “His background in the law informed both his actions and his oratory.”

To obtain a free Law Day Planning Guide and Resource Catalog when it becomes available in December, call (312) 988-5734 or e-mail abapubed@abanet.org.

More information is available online at www.abanet.org/publiced and continuous updates may be found at www.lawday.org.