Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Author:Doris Kearns Goodwin [Goodwin, Doris Kearns]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241987711
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2018-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

Keep your word.

As the first of January 1863 drew near, the public displayed a “general air of doubt” as to whether the president would follow through on his September pledge to activate his Emancipation Proclamation on New Year’s Day. Critics predicted that its enactment would foment race wars in the South, cause Union officers to resign their commands, and prompt 100,000 men to lay down their arms. The prospect of emancipation threatened to fracture the brittle coalition that had held Republicans and Union Democrats together. “Will Lincoln’s backbone carry him through?” wondered a skeptical George Templeton Strong. “Nobody knows.”

Those who knew Abraham Lincoln best would not have posed the question. All through his life, the honor and weight of his word had been ballast to his character, the “chief gem” of his pride. The breach of honor involved in his severed engagement to Mary Todd had contributed to a life-threatening depression, as had his spectacular failure to deliver on his pledge to bring Illinois an economic boom through public works. Restoration of confidence in his ability to make good on his promises and resolves had been central to his healing and the resurrection of his career. Ever since, as a family man, friend, lawyer, and politician, he had reflected carefully before setting forth his opinions and making promises. That he would hold firm to the September pledge he had made to himself and his Maker to issue the proclamation was never in question. “My word is out,” Lincoln told a Massachusetts congressman, “and I can’t take it back.”

Though the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass had been unsparingly critical of Lincoln’s delay in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, he fathomed Lincoln’s character and the durability of his word better than most. “Abraham Lincoln may be slow,” he wrote, “but Abraham Lincoln is not the man to reconsider, retract and contradict words and purposes solemnly proclaimed over his official signature.” To answer those who asked if Lincoln would reconsider, Douglass gave an emphatic no. “Abraham Lincoln will take no step backward,” he insisted. “If he has taught us to confide in nothing else, he has taught us to confide in his word.”

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