Today, on Lincoln's birthday, and in the midst of a struggle over the soul of our party, we Republicans need to remember his example in balancing principle and prudence when facing a dilemma. Determined as he was to keep slavery "in the course of ultimate extinction" as he believed the Founders had intended, Lincoln could still insist at a dark hour early in the Civil War:
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"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union... If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
The Great Emancipator knew his paramount object and allowed nothing to divert him from it. In doing so, he was able to achieve his other cherished object as well. It couldn't have worked the other way around. He knew that if the Union were broken in the 1860s, slavery's future would be extended -- exactly as slavery's human, moral, and political cost would have been greater if the Union had never been formed to begin with in the 1770s and '80s.
Republicans now, as America's conservative party, must think with the same cool clarity as Lincoln in fixing our paramount object for 2008. Is it purity in the presidential nominee? Is it electoral victory at any price? Is it avoidance of a Democratic president even at the cost of a (further) liberalizing makeover to the GOP identity? Is it arm-twisting McCain and his supporters to move right in the spring or face certain defeat in the fall?
None of those objects is paramount, in my opinion. I see the first as unattainable, the second as unworthy, and the others as desirable but lesser objects. None of the four involves a principle by which personal inflexibility and costly sacrifices can be justified. All come under the heading of prudential judgment -- messy choices in the gray area. (See Lincoln's blunt acceptance of freeing some slaves and not others; exactly what he later did by proclamation.)
Protecting America's constitutional heritage and our national interest in the world, over the span of decades and not just months or years, is the paramount object in this struggle as best I can tell. Show me a better. And show me how that paramount object can possibly be served by actions this year that result in splitting the GOP and electing Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. and political cost would have been greater if the Union had never been formed to begin with in the 1770s and '80s.
Republicans now, as America's conservative party, must think with the same cool clarity as Lincoln in fixing our paramount object for 2008. Is it purity in the presidential nominee? Is it electoral victory at any price? Is it avoidance of a Democratic president even at the cost of a (further) liberalizing makeover to the GOP identity? Is it arm-twisting McCain and his supporters to move right in the spring or face certain defeat in the fall?
None of those objects is paramount, in my opinion. I see the first as unattainable, the second as unworthy, and the others as lesser object. None of the four involves a principle by which personal inflexibility and costly sacrifices can be justified. All come under the heading of prudential judgment -- messy choices in the gray area. (See Lincoln's blunt acceptance of freeing some slaves and not others; exactly what he later did by proclamation.)
Protecting America's constitutional heritage and our national interest in the world, over the span of decades and not just months or years, is the paramount object in this struggle as best I can tell. Show me a better. And show me how that paramount object can possibly be served by actions this year that result in splitting the GOP and electing Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.