On Lincoln’s “Pragmatism”

Abstract

A common view of Abraham Lincoln is that he was a pragmatic compromiser. While not exactly false, this view is only half true. Through a close reading of Lincoln’s most important prewar statements on slavery and race and the problem of public opinion, this study makes the claim that he was, rather than a pragmatist, actually a prudent statesman. Less radical than the most radical of abolitionists, Lincoln was nevertheless not a conservative. Nor was he a populist in the Jacksonian tradition. As concerned with shaping public opinion as following it, Lincoln was a speaker of truth as well as a man of prudence, and he possessed qualities of a good politician that are compatible with being a good man only under the rule of the most rigid conscience.