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Less Than Two Weeks Until
the MCC's Annual Assembly
| The 2011 Annual Assembly of the Missouri Catholic Conference will be held Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011, at the State Capitol building in Jefferson City, Mo.
This year's assembly will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. The assembly will include a number of workshops with Civil War themes, including discussions of the legacy of slavery in Missouri by noted historian Gary Kremer and "A Visit With Mr. Lincoln" presentation by Mark Rehagen, who is a member of the Association of Lincoln Presenters (ALP). Below is a preview of the workshop to be given by Mike Hoey, executive director of the MCC. His workshop, "Abolitionists and the Slavery Debate" will discuss the lessons that can be learned from slavery and the abolitionists.
You can register online at MOcatholic.org or call (573) 635-7239. The biographies of Lincoln promised to the first 100 registrants have already been awarded; however, the MCC is reserving a number of these biographies to distribute at the Annual Assembly on a first-come first-serve basis during the lunch hour. (Instructions on where to obtain the biographies will be given during the opening session of the Annual Assembly.) |
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What Would Lincoln Do?
| The 2011 Annual Assembly of the Missouri Catholic Conference will pose the question: how do we unite a divided nation? It is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War and so the assembly will consider what lessons can be learned from that tragic era as we face our own national controversies. 
Our current divisions are not nearly as profound as those of Lincoln's time; no civil war looms on the horizon. But numerous examples of our incivility can be cited. It is in this context that an examination of the life of Abraham Lincoln can be salutary. Lincoln is now revered as one of our greatest presidents, but in his lifetime he had plenty of detractors.
More than 620,000 soldiers and sailors died during the American Civil War. Could the war have been avoided while still ending slavery? Not according to the abolitionist John Brown, who sought to incite a slave insurrection in 1859 by raiding the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. Just before his hanging Brown scribbled a note declaring: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged but with blood."
In public lectures in Boston and Concord, Ralph Waldo Emerson proclaimed, "[John Brown] will make the gallows glorious like the Cross." (Privately, however, Emerson confided to friends: "We have had enough of this dreary business.") In the hours before his execution, Brown read his Bible, convinced he had been a righteous agent of a wrathful God.
For those who saw Brown as a martyr, politicians like Abraham Lincoln had made a pact with the devil by recognizing the legal right to own slaves in the existing states. Yet Lincoln was very clear in condemning slavery: "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." He opposed slavery's extension into new federal territories and believed that stopping its expansion would lead to its extinction, a goal he repeatedly avowed, much to the chagrin of those who would tolerate slavery if that was necessary to save the Union.
Unlike a Thoreau at his pond, or a philosopher at his writing desk, Lincoln was a practical politician who had to negotiate, seek allies and develop consensus for his moral ideals. Some purists see politicians as a morally inferior class of people. They are always compromising. But are they really? Or are they advancing the good as best they can within the limits of the democratic process?
Lincoln presented a strong moral argument without being moralistic. He recognized the complexity of the issue and put himself in the place of his opponents. He knew how chattel slavery had become an integral part of the Southern economy. In a speech in Peoria in 1854, Lincoln observed of Southern slave owners: "They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up."
Opposition to slavery took many forms. John Brown saw himself as an Old Testament prophet called by God to end slavery by whatever means necessary. Abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison believed in nonviolence and sought the moral redemption of slave owners. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), the bestselling novel of the 19th century, to stir sentiment against slavery. Harriet Tubman rescued more than 70 slaves, leading them north along a route that became known as the Underground Railroad. Lincoln sought to end chattel slavery through the court of public opinion and legal reform.
How do we respond to great evils present in our society? Catholic citizens seek to end great evils, such as abortion. Those efforts have taken a variety of forms, but have always been imbued with a spirit of peace and charity, an approach commended by President Lincoln in his second inaugural address in which he called for a new spirit of unity: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ... ."
In his encyclical The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II endorsed incremental steps to stop abortion when it was not possible to end it completely and observed: "This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects" (par. 73).
Lincoln's life and the teachings of our church offer guidance on how Catholics can hold fast to their moral principles while working constructively for change within a democratic society. |
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