Getting Right With Lincoln: Mike Pence

Less than twenty-four hours after Hillary Rodham Clinton accepted her party’s presidential nomination, Abraham Lincoln entered the contest. Or at least Mike Pence, the Republican nominee for vice president, wanted to weigh in on a recent controversy by citing Lincoln.

Pence attempted to explain the comments of Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump concerning whether Russia had gained access to the e-mails of then-Secretary of State Clinton by invoking the words of the first Republican president (at least as he remembered them):

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump wasn’t trying to encourage Russia to hack Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s emails earlier this week, Trump’s vice presidential pick Mike Pence said ― he was just trying to be like Abraham Lincoln.

Pence, the governor of Indiana, invoked the Civil War-era president on Friday while defending Trump’s statement that he hoped Russian hackers have Clinton’s emails.

“He’s just simply saying, ‘gosh, if they’re out there somewhere, I would like to see them.’ … You know, Abraham Lincoln said, give the people the facts, and the republic will be saved,” Pence told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “I mean, I think that’s the point that [Trump is] making. He’s not encouraging some foreign power to compromise the security of this country.”

Pence is fond of invoking this quote, and he’s used it before to advise a president as to what to do:

“Is this the tapes thing?” Bush asked, referring to two ABC News reports that included excerpts of recordings Saddam Hussein made of meetings with his war cabinet in the years before the U.S. invasion. Bush had not seen the newscasts but had been briefed on them.

Pence framed his response as a question, quoting Abraham Lincoln: “One of your Republican predecessors said, ‘Give the people the facts and the Republic will be saved.’ There are 3,000 hours of Saddam tapes and millions of pages of other documents that we captured after the war. When will the American public get to see this information?”

Apparently that did not happen.

It’s a commonplace observation that everyone running for office wants to have Abraham Lincoln on their side, and it must be nice when that’s the case. So we can now expect someone to ask a historian what Lincoln really said, and we’ll await that series of reports.

In the meantime, however, I’d like to point out to the Republican standard bearers that once you bring Lincoln into a presidential campaign as an authority, you leave yourself open to having other people quote Lincoln as well. And so I’d like to leave them with a Lincoln quote from 1855:

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.

Well, we know someone who likes Russia.

8 thoughts on “Getting Right With Lincoln: Mike Pence

  1. tmheaney July 29, 2016 / 11:15 am

    Don’t forget Trump’s own discussion of the “something” that Lincoln did:

    “Well, I think Lincoln succeeded for numerous reasons. He was a man who was of great intelligence, which most presidents would be. But he was a man of great intelligence, but he was also a man who did something that was a very vital thing to do at that time. Ten years before or 20 years before, what he was doing would never have even been thought possible. So he did something that was a very important thing to do, and especially at that time.”

  2. The Other Mark July 29, 2016 / 1:34 pm

    This is the same Russia about which President Obama told its Prime Minister he’d have more flexibility in dealing with after his reelection in 2012?

    The same Russia about which President Obama mocked Romney for his statement that it was an enemy?

    Looks like President Obama needs to get right with Lincoln.

    • Brooks D. Simpson July 29, 2016 / 1:42 pm

      I don’t think the incumbent has asked the Russians to become involved in the current election. That’s a no-no.

      • The Other Mark July 29, 2016 / 2:05 pm

        That’s true. She just settled for making her emails available to them.
        By the way, I am not voting for either of the major party candidates.

      • Lyle Smith July 29, 2016 / 7:32 pm

        The incumbent need not have invited the Russians to become involved in the current election, because with the incumbent in charge the Russians do whatever the hell they please.

  3. Michael Bradley July 29, 2016 / 2:09 pm

    As I recall, Thomas Jefferson posed the question “Who ever knew the truth to come out second best in a free and open debate.” I wonder if Gov. Pence has the wrong president?

  4. Pat Young July 29, 2016 / 4:02 pm

    That is one of my favorite Lincoln quotes.

    Thanks for posting it.

  5. Michael Rogers July 29, 2016 / 4:08 pm

    Oh Dr. Simpson. I don’t think our empty suit air headed governor is worth much of your time. He probably learned that Lincoln quote (or paraphrase) in high school. My wife who generally leans Republican placed a Fire Mike Pence sign in our yard months ago. If folks think Dan Quayle was an idiot, be very afraid if Pence becomes VP

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