Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship and the Limits of Liberal Democracy

​

This bold, groundbreaking study of American political development assesses the presidency of Abraham Lincoln through the lenses of governmental power, economic policy, expansion of executive power, and natural rights to show how Lincoln not only believed in the limitations of presidential power but also dedicated his presidency to restraining the scope and range of it.
 
Though Lincoln’s presidency is inextricably linked to the Civil War, and he is best known for his defense of the Union and executive wartime leadership, Lincoln believed that Congress should be at the helm of public policy making. Likewise, Lincoln may have embraced limited government in vague terms, but he strongly supported effective rule of law and distribution of income and wealth. Placing the Lincoln presidency within a deeper and more meaningful historical context, Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship and the Limits of Liberal Democracy highlights Lincoln’s significance in the development of American power institutions and social movement politics.
 
Using Lincoln’s prepresidential and presidential words and actions, this book argues that decent government demands a balance of competing goods and the strong statesmanship that Lincoln exemplified. 
 

Instead of relying too heavily on the will of the people and institutional solutions to help prevent tyranny, Jon D. Schaff proposes that American democracy would be better served by a moderate and prudential statesmanship such as Lincoln’s, which would help limit democratic excesses.

​

Schaff explains how Lincoln’s views on prudence, moderation, natural rights, and economics contain the notion of limits, then views Lincoln’s political and presidential leadership through the same lens. He compares Lincoln’s views on governmental powers with the defense of unlimited government by twentieth-century progressives and shows how Lincoln’s theory of labor anticipated twentieth-century distributist economic thought. Schaff’s unique exploration falls squarely between historians who consider Lincoln a protoprogressive and those who say his presidency was a harbinger of industrialized, corporatized America. 

 

In analyzing Lincoln’s approach, Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship and the Limits of Liberal Democracy rejects the idea he was a revolutionary statesman and instead lifts up Lincoln’s own affinity for limited presidential power, making the case for a modest approach to presidential power today based on this understanding of Lincoln’s statesmanship. As a counterpoint to the contemporary landscape of bitter, uncivil politics, Schaff points to Lincoln’s statesmanship as a model for better ways of engaging in politics in a democracy. Learn more.

​

Praise for Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship and the Limits of Liberal Democracy

​

"In many ways, Lincoln has almost loomed entirely too largely, since it has now become difficult to get around the acknowledgment of his greatness to discover just what it was that made him great. Jon Schaff’s Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship is an attempt to maneuver around that “persistent fascination” and lay out what can be known—and better still, appropriated for modern purposes—about Lincoln’s statesmanship."Allen C. Guelzo, Director of the Politics and Statesmanship Initiative in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, and Senior Research Scholar in the Council of Humanities, at Princeton University. Link to full review from Public Discourse

​

“While Lincoln may ‘belong to the ages,’ Jon Schaff's excellent book reveals that seeking to understand Lincoln's words and deeds is particularly important in our own era of hyperpartisanship and political polarization. Through his insightful analysis of Lincoln, Schaff usefully reminds us that a democratic leader who is moderate and prudent can at the same time be highly principled and inspiring. The overall portrait that emerges in this fine book is one of a Lincoln who is both timeless and timely.”—Brian Danoff, author of Educating Democracy: Alexis de Tocqueville and Leadership in America

​

“We know that Abraham Lincoln was a skilled politician. But was he a skilled political thinker whose ideas still deserve attention 150 years after the events he shaped? Jon Schaff argues with an emphatic yes, guiding us through what the structure of statesmanship looks like and how thoroughly Lincoln inhabits it. This is an eminently balanced—even usable—Lincoln, since Schaff not only lays out Lincoln’s natural-rights political thinking but also shows how the modern presidency, besotted as it is with near monarchical notions of its importance, and a healthy democracy could profit from some Lincolnian restraint.”—Allen C. Guelzo, author of Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas

​

“In this perceptive and instructive book, Schaff demonstrates that Lincoln’s example helps teach us that a healthy democratic politics depends on our willingness to embrace the theoretical and political limits that natural-rights principles and constitutionalism impose on majority rule.”—Jason R. Jividen, author of Claiming Lincoln: Progressivism, Equality, and the Battle for Lincoln’s Legacy in Presidential Rhetoric

​

“Lincoln and the Limits of Liberal Democracy shows that in Lincoln’s statesmanship, Americans found a rare combination of character and mind devoted to the nation’s highest principles while tempered by a due sensibility to human frailty.”—Lucas E. Morel, editor of Lincoln and Liberty: Wisdom for the Ages

​

​