Lincoln's challenge

Barack Obama is not without precedent.

There was another one-term congressman from Illinois whose list of pre-presidential accomplishments were deemed paper thin by detractors.

His name: Abraham Lincoln.

He is the subject of an exhibition called “Lincoln: The Constitution & The Civil War” at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum through Sept. 14. Arranged by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, it combines historic photos and illustrations, artifacts (including two stovepipe hats worn by Lincoln as well as signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery), interactive presentations and other multimedia.

“It’s a show about the Constitutional challenges that Lincoln faced while he was trying to guide the nation during the Civil War,” said Clay Bauske, museum curator for the Truman Library.

With Lincoln’s election in 1860 came Southern secession (Lincoln’s name did not even appear on ballots in nine Southern states due to his pro-North – and anti-slavery – ambitions). South Carolina, the eighth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, was the first to secede followed by seven Deep South cotton-growing states and, later, four more slave states. They would call themselves the Confederate States of America because they saw the union not as a Constitutionally bound whole but a confederacy of sovereign and separate states.

“The states that seceded felt they had voluntarily come together to ratify the Constitution and, therefore, could voluntarily leave the union at their leisure,” Bauske said. “Lincoln did not agree. He saw it as a binding pact that could not be revoked.”

The exhibit covers three constitutional issues: the right a state has to secede, the crisis of slavery (there were at least three points in the Constitution that sanctioned slavery and limited what Lincoln could do; it is why the Emancipation Proclamation only outlawed slavery in states hostile to the North and excluded such slave-holding border states as Missouri, Maryland and Kentucky) and the right to deny civil liberties to Southern sympathizers in states still belonging to the Union.

The exhibit showcases the problems confronting Lincoln and his actions. It’s up to visitors to decide whether he’s right or wrong for sometimes overstepping his bounds as commander-in-chief, including his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus (meant to prevent unlawful detention by the state) and his organization of an army without congressional consent. Visitors can render their verdicts through a computer game allowing them to hold or release prisoners held as “subversives,” a computer polling station where they can pick their choice for president in the 1864 election and a Post-it note to give their written response to the question: Do you think America has lived up to the ideals Lincoln fought for – equality, freedom, democracy?

Greg Hyde, of Kansas City, who visited the exhibit Tuesday, said that Lincoln should be honored for his willingness to do whatever it took to see the union reformed and slavery ended forever.

“Lincoln had to be one tough dude,” he said. “No doubt.”

Jillian Hill, of Blue Springs, saw Lincoln a little differently after touring the exhibit Tuesday.

“You never hear about the negatives with Lincoln,” she said. “Although he was undoubtedly a great president, he shouldn’t have been able to deny people their rights without hard evidence; that was wrong.”

Next year marks the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, which is one reason why Bauske suggested the exhibit to the Truman Library’s board of directors.

But it’s not the only reason.

“Lincoln had to be in office during the pursuit of a major war,” Bauske said. “Harry Truman came to office in the middle of a major war, so a lot of the decisions he had to make were similar.”