Statesmanship and Progressive Reform An Assessment of Herbert Croly's Abraham Lincoln

Statesmanship and Progressive Reform provides a critical assessment of Herbert Croly's influential account of Abraham Lincoln in his book, The Promise of American Life (1909). As founder and editor of The New Republic, Croly was one of the premier intellectual architects of the American Progressive movement. A defining element of Croly's book was his claim that Progressivism was a continuation of the spirit of Lincoln's political thought. This identification of Progressive politics with the Lincoln legacy became a major component of Progressive and modern liberal political rhetoric, especially among presidents like Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Lyndon Johnson, and most recently, Barack Obama. Croly's account of Lincoln is crucial to his ideology of reform, yet Jividen and Alvis provide a brand-new argument that this praise and analysis of Lincoln is highly problematic. Statesmanship and Progressive Reform shows how Croly's depiction of Lincoln looks almost exclusively at his character or "spirit," rather than his speeches, writings, or deeds – all of which would not have aligned so easily to the principals of Progressivism. Despite his adulation of Lincoln, Croly rejects the first principles of American democracy as Lincoln understood them and arrives at a notion of American statesmanship that sharply departs from that of his seemingly ideal statesman.

J. David Alvis is Professor of political science at Wofford College, USA. His research interests include the presidency, the Progressive era of American politics, and constitutional law.

Jason R. Jividen is Assistant Professor of Politics at Saint Vincent College, USA where he also serves as Fellow in Civic and Constitutional Affairs at The Center for Political and Economic Thought.

1. Introduction
2. Reconciling Nationalism and Democracy
3. The Demise of the Ante-Bellum Parties
4. The Need for Statesmanship
5. Croly's Lincoln and the Synthesis of Moral and Intellectual Virtues
6. Assessing Croly's Appeal to Lincoln
7. Conclusion