‘If They Can Stand It I Can’
However loud his critics shouted their disapproval, Abraham Lincoln would neither deprive them of free speech nor change his opinions.
1864
However loud his critics shouted their disapproval, Abraham Lincoln would neither deprive them of free speech nor change his opinions.
1864
In 1864, as the American Civil War progressed, talk in Washington had turned to how rebellious Confederate States ought to be handled should the Union win. President Lincoln’s appeals for reconciliation were brushed aside by supporters of the Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill, a cock-a-doodle-do of victory designed to give Washington sweeping powers.
as recalled by Ward Hill Lamon
OUR friends, Wade, Davis, Phillips, and others are hard to please.* I am not capable of doing so. I cannot please them without wantonly violating not only my oath,* but the most vital principles upon which our government was founded.
As to those who, like Wade and the rest, see fit to depreciate my policy and cavil at my official acts, I shall not complain of them. I accord them the utmost freedom of speech and liberty of the press, but shall not change the policy I have adopted* in the full belief that I am right.
I feel on this subject as an old Illinois farmer once expressed himself while eating cheese. He was interrupted in the midst of his repast by the entrance of his son, who exclaimed, ‘Hold on, dad! there’s skippers* in that cheese you’re eating!’
‘Never mind, Tom,’ said he, as he kept on munching his cheese, ‘if they can stand it I can.’
as recalled by Ward Hill Lamon
* Benjamin Franklin ‘Bluff’ Wade (1800–1878), Senator for Ohio, and Henry Winter Davis (1817–1865), representing Maryland, sponsored the Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill in 1864, a year before the American Civil War ended. The Bill’s supporters piously demanded (among other things) that a majority of voters in any defeated State swear an ‘Ironclad Oath’ that they had never aided the Confederacy. They looked forward to the voters coming up short, so that Washington could justify stepping in and taking full control of their Governments.
* According to the US Constitution: “Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:— ‘I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’”
* Lincoln asked only that 10% of the voters swear allegiance to the US Constitution and repudiate slavery, hence ‘The Ten Percent Plan’. His vision allowed each State to retain sovereignty while falling into line with Federal obligations. Wade, Davis and others believed the Confederate States had forfeited any such consideration.
* Cheese skippers are the larvae of cheese flies (Piophila casei), so named because they can jump when disturbed. If ingested, they can survive in the gut, hence the farmer’s grim vow. Not a flattering analogy for Wade, Davis and the rest.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.