The standard complaint of writers in the era of the blogging culture is that readers demand brevity and immediacy and no longer have any patience. Writers want readers who pay attention, and rarely get them. But is this entirely a bad thing? A little while ago I went back to Francis Bacon's Essays and what strikes the modern reader is just how bloggy they are. They vary in length from very short (some are just a long paragraph) to, well, short. There is no writer in the English language who expects less patience from his readers. I won't quote the opening sentences, because if you quote one you have to quote them all. Bacon is sure that if he has not grabbed you at the opening, he won't keep you long. Okay, I'll quote one, the beginning of the first essay, Of Truth: "'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer."
That's not a bad epigraph for the whole collection; the special thing about Bacon is that he absolutely doesn't demand or expect that anyone will stay a moment longer than he keeps them entertained. No one reads the Essays straight through, which is why he gets away with repeating himself a bit (virtue is "like a rich stone that is best plain set" while truth is like a pearl "which showeth best by day"). And like a blogger with an eye on the Google results, his titles are simple, announcing in no more than a word or two what the essay will be about. Even in this very short form, Bacon is discursive and bounces around, never really on message. In catering to the reader's impatience, Bacon has nothing to learn from the supposed attention deprived 21st century. What distinguishes him, though, is what there is to be learned from him. What sets Bacon apart is not just how effectively he begins, but that he almost never ends up in the same place he started.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Saturday, September 27, 2008
"If I Could Save The Union Without Freeing Any Slave..."
About a month ago we passed the 150th anniversary of the first Lincoln-Douglas debate, and having missed commenting on it for the last 150 years, I don't think coming in another month late makes too much difference. I recently read part (not all) of the debates, and they help answer the question that has always puzzled me about Lincoln. Everybody knows that Lincoln told Horace Greeley that if he could save the Union without freeing a slave, he'd have done so. Now, this has to be perplexing to any modern person, because it leaves open the basic question of what the hell was the justification for Civil War if it wasn't freeing the slaves?
I feel like most of what I've read about Lincoln manages to avoid giving a direct answer to this question, which is incredibly disappointing, because it has to be the most interesting question about Lincoln. The debates help a lot in getting to this, because they make clear the context for what Lincoln told Greeley. Lincoln says about slavery:
To Lincoln's thinking, preserving the Union without freeing the slaves wasn't one of the options. That option had been sealed off, and he believed that it had been sealed off not by him, but by the South and the apologists for the South. For those opposed to slavery, there were no more concessions left to give. Just maintaining the status quo and letting the slave states maintain the abhorrent institution was clearly not enough. The South had been offered that and much more. As Lincoln saw it, the only demand left was that slavery should not only be permitted, but expanded into the free states. For Lincoln, the political realities of slavery (he outlines these in a fascinating way in a letter to his friend Joshua Speed guaranteed the political ascendency in the South of the most intransigently pro-slavery faction. And that meant the inevitability of war.
It was not a question of just letting the South go, because the South did not want merely to go and be left on its own. It had been offered the chance to be left alone and much more, and that was never good enough. The last demand that was on the table was one that Lincoln would not countenance: not just that slavery be tolerated, but that it should be expanded and perpetuated. So the question of just letting things lie as they were was a false one. It was an option that the South and its supporters had themselves taken off the table, and to concede any more, even if it was possible, would do nothing but delay the coming catastrophe. Thus the famous sentence: "If we cannot live together as brothers, how will we live together as enemies?" Or, in other words, if we are already close to war now, why does anyone think that we will not be at war after we split into two countries?
I feel like most of what I've read about Lincoln manages to avoid giving a direct answer to this question, which is incredibly disappointing, because it has to be the most interesting question about Lincoln. The debates help a lot in getting to this, because they make clear the context for what Lincoln told Greeley. Lincoln says about slavery:
I think that [Stephen Douglas], and those acting with him, have placed that institution on a new basis, which looks to the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. And while it is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I have said that I believe we shall not have peace upon the question until the opponents of slavery arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or, on the other hand, that its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.
To Lincoln's thinking, preserving the Union without freeing the slaves wasn't one of the options. That option had been sealed off, and he believed that it had been sealed off not by him, but by the South and the apologists for the South. For those opposed to slavery, there were no more concessions left to give. Just maintaining the status quo and letting the slave states maintain the abhorrent institution was clearly not enough. The South had been offered that and much more. As Lincoln saw it, the only demand left was that slavery should not only be permitted, but expanded into the free states. For Lincoln, the political realities of slavery (he outlines these in a fascinating way in a letter to his friend Joshua Speed guaranteed the political ascendency in the South of the most intransigently pro-slavery faction. And that meant the inevitability of war.
It was not a question of just letting the South go, because the South did not want merely to go and be left on its own. It had been offered the chance to be left alone and much more, and that was never good enough. The last demand that was on the table was one that Lincoln would not countenance: not just that slavery be tolerated, but that it should be expanded and perpetuated. So the question of just letting things lie as they were was a false one. It was an option that the South and its supporters had themselves taken off the table, and to concede any more, even if it was possible, would do nothing but delay the coming catastrophe. Thus the famous sentence: "If we cannot live together as brothers, how will we live together as enemies?" Or, in other words, if we are already close to war now, why does anyone think that we will not be at war after we split into two countries?
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