Editor’s Note: Jay Nordlinger has been writing a series of what he calls “jottings” on the latest book by Rich Lowry, National Review’s editor. The book is Lincoln Unbound: How an Ambitious Young Railsplitter Saved the American Dream — and How We Can Do It Again. For the first two parts of the series, go here and here. It concludes today.
At one or two points in Lincoln Unbound, I thought of Victor Davis Hanson. Here is one of them: Lincoln “wasn’t any more romantic about farms when he left them behind than he had been when living on one,” writes Lowry.
VDH isn’t romantic about farms either: because he grew up living and working on one, and he continues to do the same (in addition to his industrious academic, literary, and journalistic career).
‐Do you want a taste of Lincoln as the anti-panderer? Rich quotes him addressing the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society in Milwaukee. The year is 1859. Lincoln begins by saying he would not “employ the time assigned me in the mere flattery of farmers, as a class. My opinion of them is that, in proportion to numbers, they are neither better nor worse than other people.”
Wow. What would Frank Luntz’s focus groups say? (I bet they would like it, actually.)
‐Writes Rich, “Lincoln had the taste for machinery of a frustrated engineer.” I want to tell you something: Not only do I wish I were an engineer — I wish I could go so far as to have the taste for machinery of a frustrated engineer.
I can only admire from a long, long way away (mentally).
‐There is a word I object to strongly in this book, or that I disagree with strongly: “The Lincoln of our public consciousness is the nineteen-foot-tall benevolent god of the Lincoln Memorial, presiding in his Greek Doric temple [amid] the honeyed words of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural.”
Those words are not honeyed. They are not sweety-sweet or ingratiating. They are direct, true, and even stern, when necessary. They are graceful. But they are not honeyed, in my opinion.
But, hell, I ain’t the one writin’ Lincoln books . . .
‐Listen to Lincoln on the subject of the Fourth of July. He says, sarcastically, “The fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it is still a great day — for burning fire-crackers!!!”
I wonder what he’d make of our modern, tinselly, trashy Christmas.
‐Listen to the following lines from Rich:
. . . social democracy is where the vitality of great nations goes to die. It is something that nations settle into rather than embrace in a rising spirit. It tends to suppress growth and take the edge off individual initiative, never mind the question of whether it is fiscally sustainable. All around the Western world, the welfare state is in crisis and our aging population means we face the same grim math. The social democratic model promises gentle decline — at best.
I think that is perfectly put.
And Rich has medicine for what ails us: Lincolnian principles and a Lincolnian spirit. That is the great service of Lincoln Unbound, marrying Lincoln’s day, and Lincoln himself, to our present time.
‐Rich introduces us to an English writer named Harriet Martineau. Observing America, she wrote, “When a few other neighbours besides frogs, gather round a settler, some one opens a grocery store.”
We also get Tocqueville saying, “An American taken at random will be ardent in his desires, enterprising, adventurous, and above all an innovator.”
That is a great compliment. It probably does not apply to me (I must admit). But I admire the type to whom it applies, and I try to do my bit by supporting, defending, and hailing that type.
You know what I mean? Not every kid opens a lemonade stand. But I love those tykes, and I’ll do what I can do keep the collectivists’ mitts off them.
‐When I read something from Rich, I thought, “That’s the whole enchilada.” What I read was this:
Out-of-wedlock childbearing, especially, undermines economic aspiration. Today the illegitimacy rate is 73 percent among blacks, 53 percent among Latinos, and 29 percent among whites. For the first time, more than half of births to mothers under the age of thirty are out of wedlock.
Again, when I read these words, I thought, “That’s the whole enchilada.” We’re finished. And Rich’s next words were, “This is quite simply a social catastrophe.”
Yes.
‐Here is something interesting: Rich writes, “We are about as far in time from Lincoln in his political prime as he was from the America of the early 1700s, when all of 275,000 Anglos lived here . . .” I don’t know if he still does this, but, for a stretch, Christopher Caldwell wrote a yearly column saying, “We are now as far away from X as X was from Y.” Those were always amazing, and somewhat unnerving, data to read.
‐Rich hazards some guesses about what Lincoln would make of our current problems. He does not presume to speak for him, but he knows his man, and his guesses are educated. I was reminded of one of our colleague Richard Brookhiser’s books: What Would the Founders Do? Our Questions, Their Answers.
‐One of the items on the Lincoln checklist, fashioned by Rich, is “Reject Class Politics.” Oh, yes and yes, and yes again. Class politics will be the death of us all. All that “You didn’t build that!” demagoguery and poison.
Rich supplies a typical quote from Lincoln: “Property is the fruit of labor — property is desirable — is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprize.”
‐In an 1859 letter, Lincoln wrote, “Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.”
Amen, Abe. I will never be a member of the cool-kids club, but that’s okay: Drugs, porn, prostitution, adultery, license — they all degrade, and enslave, and consign to death.
(I’m not enlisting Lincoln, I am popping off myself. I invite all others to pop off in their own columns!)
‐When a boy, Lincoln had a textbook called Lessons in Elocution, which contained “Selected Sentences.” One of those sentences was “There is nothing truly valuable which can be purchased without pains and labor.” Another was “You must love learning, if you would possess it.” Another was “Good manners are, to particular societies, what morals are to society in general — their cement and their security.”
I imagine such sentences would be snorted at today. But I wish I could place them in children’s hands.
Allow me a little trip down Memory Lane, and a little self-analysis, or self-explanation. When I was a kid, I looked at the old school materials of my grandparents. I liked them better than my own. I guess I had “conservative” stamped all over me, huh?
And yet, I think of myself as a radical in many respects. Anyway, let me quit gazing at my navel and finish up . . .
‐Rich Lowry’s concluding paragraphs are aglow with inspiration. Let me quote the penultimate — it’s not especially short, but you won’t be sorry you read it:
In the spirit of Lincoln, our project should be equal parts modernization (opening the vistas of the economic future) and recovery (of the American character and of bourgeois virtues). After all this time, Lincoln’s intellectual and moral case for the inherent worth of individual initiative, and for our free institutions and free economy as the foundations for it, is as important as ever. Lincoln’s enduring relevance is in his embodiment, expression, and realization of the American Dream. Nearly two centuries ago, a boy picked up an axe and imagined something better. Fired by ambition for himself and eventually for others, he made his way in the world, and then changed it. He saved the republic and did all he could to make it a bustling empire of commerce, the hotbed of millions of dreams, schemes, and aspirations.
‐Let’s face it: Assassination can do a lot for a president’s reputation. Assassination greatly affected JFK’s reputation, legacy, myth. But it did not do a whole lot for Garfield or McKinley, did it? (I’m sorry for speaking so coarsely.)
But, you know? If Lincoln had lived, his reputation might be equally large. For one thing, think of the memoirs we’d have to read . . . (They would be one of the greatest political, historical, or autobiographical works of all time. He could have written at leisure, for once, like Churchill.)
‐For many years — since the mid-1980s — I have called myself a “Reaganite” (or a “Reaganaut,” in Dick Allen’s coinage). I once wrote an essay explaining that one of the nicest things Reagan ever did for me was give me something to call myself. The word “conservative” admits of a hundred interpretations. And you don’t want to launch into a long lecture, explaining your views. So, I have that handy word, a label: “Reaganite.”
Problem is: Fewer and fewer people know what that means. People certainly knew in 1975, or 1986, or even 1992. But now? What meaning has it for the young?
When Rich Lowry’s book came out, he inscribed a copy for me, calling me a “true Lincoln man.” I greatly appreciated that. For that’s what I am, politically — a Lincoln man. I wish I could use it, commonly and freely. But who knows what it means? (Rich’s book reminds us what it means.)
My friend Robert Conquest, the great historian and man of letters, calls himself a “law-and-liberty man” — borrowing from Orwell. That will do too.
In any case, I will sign off now, commending Lincoln Unbound. If you have not yet read it, you will enjoy it tremendously, and profit from it, as I have. Bless you and see you.