STATE OF THE UNION
February 3, 2005

by Joe Sobran

     President Bush's State of the Union address was a 
triumph, far superior to his inaugural address two weeks 
earlier and delivered with a poise he has seldom 
commanded before. Its language was measured, largely free 
of the grandiose pseudo-eloquence of that other speech.

     Its effect was reinforced by the lame replies of the 
Democrats' congressional leaders. Senator Harry Reid 
seemed to have plagiarized the po' boy oratory of John 
Edwards: humble small-town origins, hard-working parents, 
"strong values," ... everything but the hamster. Real pay 
dirt for the future biographer. Congresswoman Nancy 
Pelosi, with a smile so determined it seemed to be 
stapled on, reminded us that "throughout our nation's 
history, hope and optimism have defined the American 
spirit" and went even further downhill from there. Bush 
must pray for an opposition like this.

     The annual State of the Union address has become one 
of America's most inflated rituals, lacking only the 
ermine and jewelry of royal pomp. It wasn't always so. 
The U.S. Constitution says only that the president "shall 
from time to time" -- not annually, or even in person -- 
"give to the Congress Information of the State of the 
Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures 
as he shall judge necessary and expedient."

     That's all it says. Often in the past this was 
accomplished by a short written message, not a speech. In 
1862 Lincoln wrote his message, asking for three 
constitutional amendments. One of these provided for 
funding to resettle former slaves, "free colored 
persons," outside the United States, in keeping with 
Lincoln's dream of making the U.S. a Negro-free zone.

     Lincoln's real views on the Negro, whom he often 
called simply "the African," are amply delineated in his 
collected speeches. But his white admirers rarely mention 
them except briefly, assuring us (falsely) that they were 
mere "concessions to the prejudices of his times," 
implying that he didn't really share those prejudices.

     In trying to create an immaculate Lincoln, his 
admirers -- who include some heavily decorated historians 
-- end up making him a cynical hypocrite who pretended, 
for political advantage, to agree with views he secretly 
deplored. But the evidence points the other way. Lincoln 
passionately believed that North America belonged to the 
European races, and that "the African" didn't belong 
here; in fact, that they could never be equal to whites. 
Black historians have been much more candid about this.

     During the summer of 1862, as the Civil War raged, 
Lincoln also made history by inviting a delegation of 
Negro leaders to the White House. This had never been 
done before. But it's another fact his admirers don't 
discuss, because he brought these leaders there for the 
purpose of urging them to lead their fellow Negroes to 
settle abroad. He was trying to launch special colonies 
in the Caribbean and Central America for this purpose.

     Lincoln sincerely thought total separation would be 
best for both races, and he seems to have been puzzled 
that others didn't agree. The Negro press angrily 
rejected his scheme, on grounds that this country was 
their home. But whites also had little enthusiasm for the 
idea, maybe because they realized how impractical it was. 
The Negro population was already too large, and growing 
too fast, for mass repatriation.

     Yet Lincoln wasn't eccentric in this. Jefferson and 
many other distinguished Americans had also favored 
"colonization," fearing that ending the evil of slavery 
would leave the U.S. with perpetual racial problems. In 
retrospect, this was hardly an unreasonable apprehension.

     At the same time, advocates of colonization almost 
unanimously agreed that emancipation should be not only 
"gradual," but also "compensated." That is, the 
slaveowners, not the slaves, should receive monetary 
compensation from the government!

     Of course it was government itself that made slavery 
possible by recognizing and enforcing the property rights 
of slaveowners. Slavery depended on laws authorizing 
slavery. This made abolishing slavery a thorny problem. 
Does the situation sound vaguely familiar? It should. It 
recurs all the time, in many forms.

     Bush's wrestling with Social Security and the 
Federal deficit reminds us how often government winds up 
trying to solve problems it created in the first place. 
And the Democrats' resistance to reform reminds us how 
many people, over time, acquire vested interests in those 
problems.

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