Category Archives: Abraham Lincoln

They Were Wrong

“Slave owners and white racist were afraid that the world they had always known was slipping away from them. Fear was a great motivator—fear of change, fear of losing power, fear of being that they were wrong. The roots of white anxiety over threats to enslavement and to legalize white supremacy ran deep.”

John Meacham, And There was Light. Random House, 2022, page 55.

Reading this passage last night stunned me for a moment. A flurry of thoughts rushed all at once, promptly turning to one central truth; racial dynamics in America have not changed. Not changed at all.

Meacham’s book, a biography of Lincoln, focuses on the shaping events that made Lincoln arguably America’s greatest President. However, those same formative circumstances left Southern slaveholders angry, and dangerous. This long-running rancor ultimately resulted in civil war, and Lincoln’s 1865 murder.

The Missouri Compromise triggered the first alarm below the Mason-Dixon Line. That slavery could be limited through any federal legislative act left the slave power touchy and suspicious. Sensitive to criticism, slave owners  (as Mr. Meacham pointed out), viewed opposition as a dishonorable insult. Prior to the Civil War Congressman and Senators dueled, a Senator suffered a severe beating on the Senate floor by a South Carolina Congressman. Tension in both chambers lead to the adoption of a “gag rule” that prohibited any discussion of slavery in Congress.  

As Northern abolitionists grew more emboldened, Southerners grew more militant. War was only a matter of time. Any abolitionists tracts, or books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin were discarded by local postal officials. Churches split. Southern Methodist, Southern Baptists are two examples indicating the fraying of North and South.

After the war, into the Reconstruction years Freedmen found protection through Yankee bayonets stationed in Reconstruction zones. Unrepentant Southern whites pushed back with terror. The Klan, the Knights of the White Camelia, and the White League rode through the night spreading fear and lynching freedman who dared to claim the blessings of freedom. 

Eventually the Northern public grew weary of protecting freedmen, and Union occupiers were pulled out of the region. White power was redeemed, the South closed in upon itself.

Contrasting the 21st Century to the 19th provides strikingly similar dynamics. In 2008 Barack Obama became 44th President of the United States, and white power interests again lost their minds.

It appeared America had turned a corner in race relations, but those appearances deceived. Senator Mitch McConnell began by decreeing the GOP would not work with the new president,  followed by the sunsetting a clause in the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That provision, signed by Lyndon Johnson protected black voters from discrimination at the polls. Today voters now have to prove they were slighted.

Apparently these white supremacist again see their alpha-position slipping away, and they too, are touchy and dangerous. The names have changed, but not the mission. Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, neo-Nazi’s, and Christian Nationalists, see themselves as the last bastion against Americans of color, of women’s rights, and LGBQT citizens. 

Again these thugs are thin skinned and hateful. This crowd championed an avowed racist for president, and still, today hold him as a white messiah. The symptoms are all there, fear of a changing America, fear of being wrong in their beliefs, fearful of losing control.

White supremacy as a social disorder manifests predictably. This country has been down this road before. America gave up law enforcement in 1877 due to lack of interest, the myth of white supremacy is just that, a myth. This land was made for your and me.

The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know. Harry Truman

Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, River of January, and River of January: Figure Eight. She has penned two stage plays, “Clay,” exploring the life of Henry Clay, and “Wolf By the Ears,” a study of racism in America.

Fighting Bees

Young Abraham Lincoln came of political age during the administration of Andrew Jackson. And this aspiring frontier politician did not cotton to Democrats and their blind, cult-like dedication to that one man. Residing first in New Salem, Illinois, then migrating to Springfield, Lincoln frequently spoke on the subject of Jackson’s messianic autocratic version of America.

Senator Henry Clay, a National Republican, later turned Whig, was Lincoln’s man. Mr. Lincoln admired Senator Clay due to Clay’s rational, stable vision of a growing America. Pivotal to Clay’s program included a central bank to financed internal improvements, such as road construction, canals, and railroads. Senator Clay viewed the function of government meant practical projects to built up America’s infrastructure.

Lincoln, residing in an emerging western state, was persuaded that improvement construction would bring jobs and prosperity to the region. Young Lincoln shared an additional belief with Clay that slavery did not belong in new territories, and that argument provided a basis for a modern nation-state.

President Jackson did not share in that opinion. In point of order, the president vetoed many such bills arguing one state benefiting from federal funds was unfair to other states, (though Jackson did approve many others). Furthermore, Henry Clay appeared at the top of Jackson’s adversary list, and for Clay, the feeling was mutual.

Lincoln believed excessive emotion in the political realm fell far short of statesmanship. Referring to religion Lincoln joked he didn’t much like evangelists unless they looked like they were “fighting bees.” To Lincoln, such emotional public displays had no use in politics.

What did Lincoln believe? The ideals of the United States of America, of course. The frenzy of viewing presidents as religious manifestations had no logical end game for a such a logical man. Later in his political career Lincoln likened our tenets of American faith by describing the Declaration of Independence as a golden apple, set in the silver frame of the Constitution. In other words certain inalienable rights, protected by We the People.

Overwrought political passion had the potential to destroy the peoples government, obstructing a practical “reign of reason.”

President Obama exemplified Lincoln’s America, relying on his advisors, or his own formidable intellect to govern. And Lincoln’s Jackson nightmare repeated when a dumber version proclaimed we “grow tired of all of the winning.” As I write another reasonable man is attempting, again, to put the country back on track.

In a country full of Jackson’s, be a Lincoln.

Gail Chumbley is the author of “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Chumbley also penned two stage plays, “Clay,” examining the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” a study of racism and slavery in America.

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A Mandate

Theodore Roosevelt endured a childhood haunted by ill health. Orphaned by age 15, Andrew Jackson struggled for survival in the Carolina back country. Born the first son of a second marriage, George Washington aspired to rise above his inferior social rank. Abraham Lincoln, a child of the frontier, transformed himself through sheer hard work, and perseverance.

Before they were men these four presidents encountered enormous obstacles in order to reach America’s highest office.

This is the topic of four programs I’m presenting this spring. The idea of exploring future presidents childhoods seemed an interesting approach to understanding the past. What I didn’t expect was the anxiety churned up researching Andrew Jackson. 

Rereading Chernow’s Washington A Life proved an enjoyable review. Washington was not perfect, and certainly a man of his time. But that he overcame his avarice and ambition makes Washington an affirming subject.

On Lincoln, Douglas Wilson’s Honor’s Voice did no less. The man’s goodness, compassion, and intelligence came directly from overcoming his rustic beginnings. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Wilson, plumbs the depths of Roosevelt’s chronic childhood illnesses, and the directive from his father to overcome his frail body through exercise and sports. 

Then there is Andrew Jackson. 

HW Brands work, Andrew Jackson His Life and Times, is an oldie but goody; a book I enjoyed a lot. But that was before Donald Trump. Picking up Andrew Jackson, American Lion has been an ordeal. Jon Meacham describes a man who honestly believed he alone could save America by consolidating all power in the White House. Only Jackson spoke for the people, not Congress and certainly not the Courts. And the most distressing element? The Seventh President got away with his autocratic coup because voters let him. 

How does his childhood figure into his administration? Jackson never had limits. The early demise of his family, left the boy unsupervised in the backcountry, shuttled from one relative to the next. Somehow his rootless beginnings left in Jackson a volatile temperament of him against the world. 

The General murdered scores of Native Americans, and brought home a Creek boy he’d made an orphan. Brutality and tenderness, compassion and racism, love or hate. 

For Jackson all issues of state were personal, and loyalty the foundation of all his relationships. In that vein Trump resembles Jackson, plus the vile racism. 

What separates Andrew Jackson from Trump is a numbers game. President Jackson, for better or worse did win 55.5% of the popular vote in 1828, 54.2% in 1832. (Each election included four or more candidates) Our seventh President did earn an actual mandate from the people. 

Trump did not, and loses more ground every day

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Chumbley has written two plays, “Clay” about the life of Henry Clay, and Wolf By The Ears, an examination of slavery and racism.

Reading Tea Leaves

Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision.

Abraham Lincoln

From 1790 to now, American midterm elections have functioned as an effective gauge of public opinion. 

Despite southern secession, and the subsequent war of rebellion, President Lincoln viewed national elections as the indispensable foundation of a free government. There were dissenting voices calling for cancellation of the 1862 midterms due to the war, but Lincoln did not hold to that. 

After two years in office, Lincoln needed to know where he stood with the people. The Republican Party kept majorities in Congress, but a significant shift among unhappy voters surfaced. 

Democrats (those still in the Union) picked up 27 seats in the House. Though the Senate did remain in Republican hands, Lincoln understood the first two years of war had cost him plenty. Bloody defeats on the field of battle at Bull Run, the Peninsular Campaign, plus the massive casualties at Antietam had cost his administration.

In the Twentieth Century, the bi-election in 1934 delivered a powerful message of support to Franklin Roosevelt and his administration. Not only did the public approve of his New Deal, they added nine more members to the House majority, and an additional nine to the Senate. Clearly Roosevelt’s economic measures had grown in popularity across the stricken nation. Conversely, by 1938, Democrats lost 72 House seats with 81 gains for the GOP.  FDR took those results to heart changing course on some of his policies.

Harry Truman, FDR’s successor inherited a more divided America. The Democrats had enjoyed nearly fourteen years in power, but Truman’s presidency faced a shifting change. In the midterm election of 1946 the GOP secured majorities in both the House and the Senate. Fifty-five seats changed hands in the lower chamber, and seated twelve more in the Senate. The public did not view Harry Truman in the same light as his predecessor.

There are other illustrative bi-elections to examine. For example, 1982, where the Democrats picked up 26 seats in the House, and seven in the Senate after two years of the Reagan Administration. And in 1994 Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America,” where the GOP picked up 54 House seats, and eights seats in the Senate. With that majority, Republicans worked to undermine the Clinton Administration. 

The midterms do act as a barometer of America’s political winds. A great deal is to be learned by analyzing voter turnout and the winners and losers. Political Parties can find where they stand with the people, and adjust accordingly.

In that light this last 2022 midterm spoke volumes as well. In a most unlikely scenario, where inflation and high gas prices, plus low poll numbers for our sitting president, the public rejected the GOP’s crazy MAGA’s. Yes a hand full of seats did shift the House, but barely. The former guy has clearly worn out his welcome, and voters have had enough of that sideshow. 

That he and his followers are oblivious to the temperament of the people makes no difference. The numbers don’t lie.

If this half-dozen, or so reelected extremists believe they have a mandate from the American people they are seriously mistaken. For next the two years the country will be forced to watch the same tiresome, noisy political antics they rejected at the polls.

You all are going to overplay your hands, and sink your party.

Don’t believe me? Just ask Newt Gingrich. He’s out of office and has time for your call.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Chumbley has also penned two historical plays, “Clay” on the life of statesman, Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” an exploration of racism and slavery in America.

Infinity Clause

In the fall of 1789 recently inaugurated President, George Washington called for a National day of Thanksgiving. Under the previous frame of government, the unworkable Articles of Confederation, such proclamations had customarily been sent to the governors of each state. However, Washington abandoned that practice. As the first US President, Washington instead issued the proclamation to the American People.

This President deliberately bypassed state governments.

The new Constitution, practically wet with ink, had been intentionally addressed to “We The People,” and Washington aimed through his administration to join every citizen, regardless of state, to the national government. This proclamation, seemingly banal, clearly signaled a dramatic reset of power in the new Republic.

Two years prior, in Philadelphia, the framers turned attention to composing a Preamble, otherwise understood as a mission statement. Preambles were not unusual, each state government began with them, but in that hot, humid chamber of Constitution Hall work commenced to define America’s mission. Gouverneur Morris, a delegate from New York, most probably authored the statement, and it was Morris who set out the language.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The heart of these guiding principles begin with the phrase “The People,” followed by the active verb, “To Form.”

The Preamble rests upon this infinitive clause, implying America is a work in constant progress. This mission is a founding legacy fixed upon enduring bedrock.

Susan B Anthony sought justice voting in the Election of 1872. Arrested for casting her ballot, Anthony faced a Federal judge, and received a verdict of guilty. The 19th Amendment, ratified nearly fifty years later extended the vote to women. Hounded by settlers from the 17th Century onward, Native Americans sought survival and the tranquility to peacefully co-exist with whites. It’s ironic that indigenous Americans were not citizens until 1924.The United States in 1860, teetered on a knife point of dissolution. President, Abraham Lincoln, could not stand by and watch democracy die under the threat of secession. Preparing for the common defense Lincoln mobilized northern forces to defend the Union. From Jane Addam’s Hull House, a Chicago settlement center for immigrants, promoting the general welfare, to Dred Scott, and Homer Plessy’s struggle to reap the blessings of liberty, each generation stood tall in their historic moments.

To honor the principles of the document, and as heirs of Constitutional law, our charge, like those before, is weightier than our private comfort. We The People have no choice but to continue Gouverneur Morris, and President Washington’s wishes To Form A More Perfect Union.

Modern America’s mini tyrants must not prevail. Make your voice heard at the ballot box on Tuesday, November 8, 2022.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are available on Kindle. Chumbley has written two historical plays, “Clay” regarding the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” an exploring the roots of slavery and racism.

A Scandalous Life

And I didn’t include GW Bush

A video blog. Forgive the quality, but the point is clear.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles available on Kindle. In addition Chumbley has complete two plays, “Clay,” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears” exploring the beginnings of racism and slavery.

A Scandalous Life

Through open doors down a long hallway, reminiscent of The Shining, a cacophony of noisy televisions competed. Soap operas, news reports, and talkshows spilled from empty uncleaned guest rooms. It was the summer of 1974 that I began a brief stint as a hotel maid in Spokane, Washington. Through the course of that summer I began to notice each maid had different approaches to their routine. Some girls stripped the beds, or beelined for the bathroom, but all, to the last dust mop, first switched on the television. 

And the biggest news that summer, outside of Expo ‘74, was the Watergate hearings. Chairman Sam Ervin, Senator Howard Baker, Congressman Pete Rodino, and others became my new favorite TV personalities. Watergate Burglar, Alexander Butterfield spilled the beans on Nixon’s White House taping system, and John Dean spoke of a ‘cancer on the presidency.” For me these hearings were riveting as I placed fresh towels on the rack, and changed toilet paper rolls.

By the end of that summer, August 9, 1974 Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. 

Fast forward 13 years later, and I had just given birth to my second baby, a girl, and she and I cuddled as the television introduced a whole new set of “off the books” operatives. This time the scandal concerned the Reagan Administration’s convoluted plot known as the Iran-Contra Affair. American arms were illegally sold to Iran, our sworn enemy, to continue their war against Iraq. The proceeds from those sales were funneled to anti-Communists fighters battling in Nicaragua. Both efforts violated the Boland Amendment, passed by Congress, explicitly prohibiting American meddling in Central America.

Reagan operatives had hoped that selling Iranians weapons would soften them up because the White House needed a favor. Would the Ayatollah Khomeini help encourage Lebanon’s jihadists to release American hostages secreted around Beirut? The Reagan people gambled that trading illegal arms would secure Tehran’s help. 

While rocking my infant I learned a litany of new names: NSA chief, Robert McFarland, Marine, Oliver North, North’s secretary, Fawn Hall, and the recently deceased mastermind, CIA director, William Casey. My take, as I patted my girl’s little back, was that the Reagan White House had privatized foreign policy in defiance of Congress through renegade agents.

In 1988 Ronald Reagan, in a video deposition, admitted he had done just that, but due to his failing memory, couldn’t recall. 

That brings me to my golden years. I tuned in to the January 6th hearings, as a retired grandma. My husband and I watched and listened to the evidence regarding the violent attack on our nation’s capitol. To say this hearing was electric would be an understatement. Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Capitol Police Officers, particularly Caroline Edwards, left me spell bound. Representative Liz Cheney owned the evening, making clear the person responsible for the attempted coup-the former guy. 

Donald Trump is the first sitting president in American History to be impeached twice.

So what element ties all three scandals together? For one, the course of a single life-from college kid, to motherhood, to grandmother. And I suppose one could conclude I’ve watched a helluva lot of television. 

But for me the message means something else. 

The modern Republican Party has undergone a long death spiral marked by greed, rot and decay. As Liz Cheney said, “there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

For nearly 50 years, from 1974 to 2020 the Grand Old Party has cast off its once, principled moorings, slowly imploding before our eyes. As my generation grew from young students to senior citizens the party of Lincoln silently died. 

And like Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining, there is no redemption, nor any future, only relief these mercenaries can do no more harm.

Gail Chumbley is the author of a two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Chumbley had also completed to historic plays, “Clay,” regarding the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” an examination of slavery and racism in America.

Why We Try

2017 Women’s March

When I first began this essay it ripened to nearly five hundred words to share one idea. Why I am a life-long Democrat. 

The original essay discussed the New Deal, the creation of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan, the GI Bill, and how strengthening Labor Unions evoked a sense of common purpose; how the economy boomed, and the middle class flourished.

Now all I want to impart is that Ronald Reagan was wrong. Big government is not the problem. Big government checked by regulations works remarkably well. 

I am a Democrat because with all its flaws, we stand equal in the eyes of Constitutional Law.* People made the Constitution, and we must preserve it. In general, States’ Rights is no more than a distraction perpetrated by selfish insiders who legislate their own interests. Residents are convinced through a wink and a nod, that the enemy (Big Government) must be defied, using catch phrases like “our values,” and “real conservative.”

In truth, the Federal Government can do more for all of us than any individual state, or any individual citizen can do for themselves. As I write, Idaho’s governor has asked for, and been granted federal funds for drought aid. Talk about biting the hand that feeds the State.

I am a Democrat because I’m inspired by the nobility of America’s past champions; the persistence of General George Washington, the compassion of Abraham Lincoln, the purpose of Alice Paul, and the articulate vision of Barack Obama. I am a Democrat because James Madison instructed us to create “A More Perfect Union.” Without that persistence, compassion, purpose, and vision America cannot continue as “the world’s last best hope,” as Lincoln also described us.

At bottom I am a Democrat because I know not one of us is perfect. We just keep trying. 

*Just heard the headline regarding the reversing of the Roe decision. Time to gather 4,600,00 of my best friends (2017 Women’s March) and organize.