Russ Roberts: and his elevation to the position of President. He is 28 years old. What is happening in the world that he is worried about? What scares him that is the focus of the speech?
Diana Schaub: Yes. So, what he sees is an increase in lawlessness, an increase in mob violence and mob rule. So, that’s the diagnosis he gives at the moment Danger.
Later in the speech, he will also talk about the dangers of the future, but the beginning of the first part of the speech is about the present danger, and that is the outbreak of mob rule. These are precautionary situations where citizens think, ‘Well, I want to get justice faster than the law allows me to do.’
And, therefore, he had cases of citizens taking the law into their own hands: hanging gamblers, hanging blacks accused of treason, hanging whites suspected of working with slaves.
And Lincoln says that this outbreak of mob rule is happening all over the country. He says it is not specific to one region.
However, interestingly, he says it is not specific to slaveholding or non-slaveholding states.
Therefore, even though he seems to be saying slavery not the cause of the outbreak, however all the examples he gives, and the fact that he introduces this important division of whether he lives in a slaveholding or non-slaveholding state, suggests to me that he really believes that slavery is the living cause of the outbreak.
Russ Roberts: Now, at this time, America is very young. It is less than 50 years old. Why does that have to do with Lincoln? What is the age of the country and the place of the country before, until now—what is the significance of that for Lincoln?
Diana Schaub: Yes. It’s clear he thinks about what it means to be a generation after the founding. Therefore, the beginning of the speech talks about the founders, what they achieved. They gave us two things. They gave us this ‘good country,’ and they gave us a political structure of freedom and rights.
And, what he is saying is that we—he means his generation—are the fortunate inheritors of these two good things. And, he, in that first presentation, seems to be suggesting that the Founders do the hard work. And, like inheritance, we just have to do it pass on these things in the next generation.
So, he says, you know: They were a brave and strong and patriotic generation, and it’s ours. only to convey these. As if that it’s easy something you have to do.
So, his the first one the introduction says: Let’s continue this thing. OK? Our job is a repair job.
And then, as the talk goes on, it becomes clear that the repair job can be a very difficult job.
Therefore, at the end of the speech, he will return to the Founder and explain how the passions of the few and the many cooperated during the Founder’s time to make the Foundation possible.
Therefore, he says that for the few, their desire was not satisfied by this great experiment, and their individual desire was inextricably related to this great cause of establishing self-government.
And for many, he says they can hate the British, and that united them. And dangerous passions like hatred and revenge played a beneficial role during the founding.
So, in a way, I think his argument is that the Foundation was aware of some kind of fraud. But, what happens in the future in the post-establishment generations is that those desires can no longer play the same role of utility.
Therefore, there is a risk that the passions of a few will take a different direction. OK? If you can’t be famous as a Founder, well, you can be famous as a destroyer, you know, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon.
And, for many, what happens is that those passions are part of human nature. They will continue to be there–hatred and revenge and jealousy, envy. But, now those will be directed inward against other Americans.
So, his ultimate claim is that the task, in fact, of future generations – of post-establishment generations – is to put the project of self-government on a new foundation, not a radical foundation, but a foundation. the reason.
And that is the greatest demand that Lincoln made of the citizens of America.
So, I think you’re calling for a kind of–I don’t know–a refinement, a spiritualization of the autonomy project, and really showing that autonomy to the country. collection it depends on the existence of the people who govern themselves; and that means the importance of thinking over love in the human soul.
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