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LITR 4232: American Renaissance  |
Final Exam Essays 2013 Sample answers for
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Mickey Thames
Thoreau and Lincoln—A Time to Sit, and
A Time to Fight
Thoreau and Lincoln, in their times and places,
both were represented with a problem. The government they were under was doing
things they did not agree with. Both men were abolitionists, both did not wish
to see their Union enslaving men. But how they fought this differs quite
differently.
Thoreau, a man of peace sees government as the
problem. He sees it as weak, “It
has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend
it to his will [2]”. He also sees the government as having no real positive
purpose.
[3] Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the
alacrity [quickness]
with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not
settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American
people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat
more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.
Thoreau, in seeing his government
overstepping itself and causing the injustice it has caused, finds himself at a
loss as to what he can do. He has no powerful office, he has nothing besides his
vote, which even that he describes as “cheap”. He cannot bring himself to even
participate in a government that would allow such a thing. So, what is left for
a man who will not vote, and has no power? Thoreau says that he must
“but it is his duty, at least, to
wash his hands of it” and to not support it. Thoreau, given the problem of
slavery, instead of standing against it, he chooses to sit. Not in laziness, but
in opposition. His days in jail attest to his obstinate sitting, and refusing to
pay taxes to support the organization he blames for the woes of man. For
Thoreau, morality dictates that he not be involved at all with such a horrendous
thing. Better for him to never associate with it, and suffer at its hands, than
to been seen supporting it.
This same moral problem was given to Lincoln. He
saw a nation that was expanding slavery all around him, despite his own
misgivings against it. But Lincoln did not want to impose his views on another.
His overall goal of keeping the Union together overrode his morality in the
beginning.
[1] I believe this
government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be
dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to
be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the
opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where
the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in
the course of ultimate extinction, or
its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the
States, old as well as new, North as well as South.
Lincoln’s insistence on tolerance and keeping the
Union together at all costs kept him on the sidelines, just as Thoreau was
doing. That would soon change though. With Lincoln’s rise to power, also came a
responsibility to use that power justly. Lincoln, as Emerson writes
“gr[ows] according to the need. His
mind mastered the problem of the day; and as the problem grew, so did his
comprehension of it. Rarely was man so fitted to the event.” As
Lincoln’s power grows, so does his understanding, and his morality of the
situation. Where Thoreau sat, Lincoln now finds himself in a position where he
must stand.
Where the reader may have responded with sympathy
for Thoreau’s lack of action, and seen in him a way out of supporting a corrupt
system, the reader may also find cause to be invigorated by Lincoln’s change of
heart. There is a large difference between being able to act in a righteous way,
and in actually doing the righteous thing. Where the response to the moral
question changes is this- how much responsibility do you have? Will you have?
Can you have? Only one of these things can we know for sure, the other two are
possibilities. Students learning morality must equip themselves for cases where
they will be powerless to stop something, and for cases where they will be the
only ones who can stop it. These questions cannot be answered with a spectrum of
yes to know, fill in a bubble preselected sheet. There are no pre-selected
answers when it comes to morality. It changes according to the situation and
person it confronts. Make no mistake, morality is a confrontational thing. It
can have two different answers for the same person at different points in their
lives, and two identical ones for two different people. For Thoreau and Lincoln,
two very different people, the answer was the same for a long while. Until
Lincoln’s reality changes how he must respond to morality.
1865 flag of the USA