Copies of Differ We Must arrived at my house. It’s a moment of suspense. A writer knows how the book ends but not how it will be received when it’s published October 3. Some people have preordered, which you can do at your bookstore or by clicking this link for the hardcover, audio book or ebook. You can also support independent sellers here.
It’s a relevant time to talk of how Lincoln managed his divided America. A divided government is approaching a September 30 deadline to fund federal operations. House Republicans have begun an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Apparently, the evidence of wrongdoing was insufficient to persuade a majority of the House, because Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the inquiry without holding a vote on it. Four grand juries have indicted former President Trump for dozens of criminal offenses, including his bid to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump nonetheless leads his party’s contest for the 2024 nomination.
In Texas, Republicans are divided among themselves. The Republican-led House of Representatives impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton for abusing his office. The Republican-led Senate turned his trial into a test of partisan loyalty and acquitted him. In Wisconsin, Republicans lost their majority on the state supreme court, and now fear it will throw out the gerrymandered election map that has allowed them to cling to minority power for years. Some talk of impeaching the swing justice who could rule against them.
Democrats are more unified than a year or two ago, but face anxiety over renominating an 80-year-old president who faces relatively low approval ratings.
When I was talking recently with a person in government this book came up, and the person said I will need to be ready with an answer for audiences during the forthcoming tour: what is our way out? I have no easy answer, but can say something Lincoln did: he searched constantly for allies. In a democracy, you need to build a majority, which means dealing with people you disagree with. My earlier posts have highlighted Frederick Douglass and Joshua Giddings, who were more radical than Lincoln. In each case Lincoln met them in search of common ground.
Lincoln also tried to gain advantage from those who could not be his allies. One was Duff Green, a newspaperman and propagandist who, like Lincoln, was born in Kentucky. He said what he thought. Once his newspaper so insulted a member of Congress that the lawmaker found him in a Washington street and beat him so severely that he was hospitalized. Green afterward had his newspaper repeat the insult.
Thinking about Green is like studying a distant mountain: it looks different depending on the weather and the angle of observation. In his early adulthood he was a champion of equality. His newspaper supported the presidential aspirations of Andrew Jackson, promoting Jackson’s idea of equality, of breaking down distinctions between aristocrats and commoners. He went so far as to oppose corporate tax breaks: everyone should play by the same rules.
He also was a slaveowner. He didn’t include Black people in his notions of equality. As the Civil War approached, he became obsessed with defending the institution.
Visitors to the Library of Congress in Washington, DC have stood on ground that Duff Green once owned. He had a line of row houses on that property facing the Capitol. It was known as Duff Green’s Row. Green lived in one of the houses, and rented out another as a boardinghouse. In the late 1840’s, one of its tenants was Abraham Lincoln, who was serving a single term in Congress.
They were members of the same political party at that time—the Whigs—and also distantly related by marriage. Lincoln naturally befriended Green and sometimes asked him for political help.
The growing crisis over slavery eventually dissolved their political party and revealed the two friends to be on opposite sides of the divide. Both talked of equality, but didn’t mean it the same way at all, didn’t share the same view of the world, and almost seemed to speak different languages.
After Lincoln won the presidential election of 1860 as the nominee of the antislavery Republican Party, Southern states rejected their election defeat and tried to secede. Early in this crisis, Lincoln took a meeting with Duff Green. It became an early test of how far Lincoln was willing to bend to accommodate those who would break up the country.
Lincoln’s choice in that moment will not tell us what we can do now. But it will show us what Lincoln did when faced with more extreme divisions than we have yet faced. It’s also just a wild story, and I hope you’ll read it. Thanks for reading this far.