Is Sarah Palin’s rise to a national candidacy like Lincoln’s?

A few days ago Mark Jaws initiated an e-mail discussion under the subject line, “An Honest Assessment of Sarah Palin,” with about forty names in the cc line, almost all of whom were unknown to me. I didn’t follow or participate in the discussion, until this very interesting and eloquent e-mail came in.

SB wrote:

Abraham Lincoln was born to two uneducated farmers, and his mother largely provided his early education, teaching him how to read. Mathematics and more worldly education was obtained by Lincoln himself through his own studies of books borrowed from neighbors, the church minister, etc. Lincoln’s early career included an initial failed attempt to enter the Illinois General Assembly and a stint running a small store. He then successfully campaigned for and entered the Illinois House of Representatives at the tender age of 25. At the age of 28, Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois State Bar, and he did this by simply reading books. At the age of 35, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one undistinguished term as something of a loose cannon. He left politics for several years after this, but then ran for President in 1860, and the rest is history.

Lincoln’s entire formal education amounted to just 18 months of primary school. He never went to high school and he never went to college. Most of his early life was spent in Illinois. That such a man can rise from such ignoble beginnings to accomplish such great things is a testament to the promise that the United States of America was founded on: that all men are created equal. In the United States, there is no nobility of landed gentry, no aristocracy of nobility, no privileged classes having superior rights to others. One man, one vote. Equal opportunity. Founded on the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and equality, all are equal before the law. And in the United States more than any other country, membership in the ruling class is open to all. Only in the United States have men of humble beginnings achieved the heights of leadership without resorting to despotism and tyranny. I am proud to be a citizen of this great country; proud to have before me such opportunity; and proud to live in a country where even ordinary persons of uninspiring background and little experience, such as Sarah Palin, can nevertheless have the opportunity to reach for the extraordinary, even as Lincoln did some 150 years ago. God Bless America.

I replied:

SB expresses a true and noble American ideal. But in his support for Palin he confuses that ideal with its opposite, namely he confuses (1) the fact that in America there are no arbitrary obstacles preventing a person from rising in life, a fact that enabled Lincoln to rise to a significant law career and political career and the presidency from the humblest of backgrounds, with (2) the idea that anybody, including Sarah Palin, regardless of experience, should “have the opportunity” to reach for national office.

Lincoln’s rise was made possible by two things: the absence of arbitrary obstacles in American society, as I mentioned, and by his own abilities and aspirations. He became a lawyer by studying law books, which was the way men became lawyers back then. He became a successful and prominent lawyer in Illinois in the 1850s, representing railroad companies. He became a national figure after 1854 as a result of his staunch and principled opposition to the Kansas Nebraska Act and his exceptionally clear articulation of the spread-of-slavery problem, which was the number one issue facing the country at that time.

To say that Lincoln, whose demonstrated intellectual abilities and leadership made him a national figure and propelled him to the Republican nomination in 1860, is the same as Palin, who is essentially ignorant of national issues and was picked because she is an exciting personality who would attract women’s votes, is to distort both history and those noble American ideals. It is to equate Lincoln’s rise by ability with Palin’s rise by personality and “we-need-a-woman-on-the-ticket.” I’m not denying Palin has talent, she is very talented, as I’ve said from the start. But that doesn’t mean that she is prepared at this point in her life for national office. Further, as I’ve argued, even if she were prepared for national office, she should not have run as a national candidate given her complicated family situation, because her doing so has undermined conservative principles, making impossible for the conservative movement ever again to say (in the absence of a collective recantation) that illegitimacy is bad for society, and that women and men have different kinds of gifts, and that we cannot expect total equality of career and income between the sexes.

No substantive standards were overthrown in order for Lincoln to be nominated and elected. But to justify Palin’s nomination, conservatives have THROWN AWAY their previous standards. Now they say that experience doesn’t matter. Now they say that intellectual ability and knowledge doesn’t matter. Now they say that it’s perfectly fine for a woman with an infant baby and small children to run for and occupy the most demanding job in the world. Now they say there are no differences between men and women regarding responsibility for child rearing. And now they attack and seek to silence those conservatives who still stand for the conservative standards that they’ve abandoned, true conservatives of whom the Palin supporters say, “How dare they suggest that Sarah Palin can’t be vice president with a small baby? Would they say the same about a man?” And now they produce in-your-face, angry-feminist-style videos attacking anyone who suggests that there are differences between men and women with regard to family and work. Thus the pro-Palin conservatives have turned against conservative beliefs and turned into egalitarian feminists. And all this has happened as a direct result of, and in support of, Palin’s candidacy. It is thus profoundly mistaken to equate Lincoln’s elevation to a national ticket with Palin’s.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 21, 2008 05:40 PM | Send