Learning from Lincoln to restore politics

Lincoln’s politics of tolerance and inclusion, embracing even his political opponents, remains as homework for politicians even today.

KIM HYOUNG-GUThe author is the Washington bureau chief of the JoongAng Ilbo. At the end of last year, I visited a historic theater in Washington. Ford’s Theatre stands among modern structures, just as it has since the 1800s. What impressed me more than the performance of “A Christmas Carol” was the Lincoln Museum in the basement.

Ford’s Theatre is known as the historical site where U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The museum has a detailed account of the moment — specifically at 10:15 p.m. on April 14, 1865 — when Lincoln was shot by an assassin who opposed the emancipation of slaves while the president was watching a play on the second-floor balcony.

On the left and right sides of the corridor to the theater, actions of Lincoln and the assassin are chronicled in detail. The two timelines meet right at the entrance of the theater. The revolver pistol used in the assassination and the knife used in the emergency surgery catch the eyes of the visitors.

At one corner of the museum, a quote from Lincoln’s letter to the Congress shortly before signing the Emancipation Proclamation is inscribed. “We cannot escape history,” the line says. The proclamation contains Lincoln’s hope to end the hatred and division between the North and the South over slavery and to move forward to the future.

Despite Lincoln’s wish for a politics of unity, the United States has since faced many crises threatening democracy, including the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack that shocked the world around this time three years ago.

The attack on Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung at the beginning of the year even seemed to be shocking in the U.S. Major American media outlets reported the incident, focusing on the political polarization and politics of hatred in Korea.

The American political scholars that the JoongAng Ilbo contacted presented a single prescription — “restoration of politics.” As the vices of factional politics aimed at looking at the other party only as a target to break may grow ahead of the April 10 parliamentary elections, Politics must be restored to its original function of resolving conflicts through dialogue and compromise, the scholars advised.

President Lincoln appointed Edwin Stanton, his nemesis who was openly hostile toward him, as the Secretary of War despite oppositions from his aides during the Civil War. Stanton was loyal to the Lincoln administration and turned into a strong supporter of Lincoln.

When Lincoln was shot, Stanton immediately came to the spot and delivered a famous farewell speech in which he said Lincoln would remain in history. Lincoln’s politics of tolerance and inclusion, embracing even his political opponents, remains as homework for politicians even today.