Here is snippet from a news report of a speech Abraham Lincoln gave at Lacon, IL in 1848:
He scored with the most scathing language, that ``consistency'' of the Abolitionists, which, while they professed great horror at the proposed extension of slave territory, they aided in the election of Mr. Polk; for which, and its disastrous consequences, they were responsible, as they held the balance of power.
In 1844 the small Liberty Party ran James Birney for president. The Whigs ran Henry Clay. Together Clay and Birney, the anti-slavery candidates, gained the majority of the vote, but since that vote was split between the two of them, James Polk, the pro-slavery candidate, was elected president. "Liberty men" objected to Clay because Clay, although basically anti-slavery and opposed to the annexation of Texas, a key anti-slavery position, was himself a slaveholder. Clay also was not for immediate abolition.
Abe Lincoln for some time remained bitter that some anti-slavery voters had deserted Clay, throwing the election to Polk. This, he insisted, was promoting consistency over victory. A vote for Clay was a vote for almost everything the Liberty men wanted. A vote for Polk was a vote against everything the Liberty men desired. So by voting for the purist, Birney, the Liberty men ensured that the worst possible scenario became reality while denying victory to Clay, who would have enacted almost the entirety of the Liberty platform. Anti-slave forces would make the same mistake in 1856, splitting their votes between John C. Fremont and Millard Fillmore, throwing the election to James Buchanan despite the fact that the Fremont-Fillmore vote accounted for 400,000 more votes than Buchanan.
Republicans are threatening to do the same in 2008. In the debate this past week, both Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul could not bring themselves to say they will support the party's nominee, no matter who it is. Meanwhile, social conservatives are threatening to form a third-party if Rudy Giuliani is the Republican nominee.
The most certain outcome of such a third-party effort is the election of the Democratic nominee, likely Hillary Clinton. So the "success" of the social conservatives would be to elect a president totally antithetical to their beliefs. The issues about which the social conservatives care most, abortion and same-sex marriage, are subjects of judicial inquiry and Clinton appointed judges would certainly continue the activist practice of defining policy on these matters rather than leaving them to the American people. Giuliani, whatever his policy preferences, is likely to appoint judges friendly to the social conservative cause. As president there is virtually nothing he can do to effect policy on these matters, and to the extent a president can Giuliani has indicated he'd side with social conservatives (for example in denying federal dollars for abortion services).
Because Rudy Giuliani is not "consistent" with the social conservative outlook, some social conservatives would rather elect Hillary Clinton than Giuliani. Like the Liberty men of 1844, in pursuit of consistency social conservatives supporting a third-party candidate will become responsible for the victory of their opponent's policies.
I suppose such social conservatives will call this a moral victory. They will take pride, right after their fall, for remaining consistent in their views. Like Tom Tancredo they will pat themselves on the back for not voting for the "lesser of two evils" and ignore the fact that they helped elect the greater of two evils. Acting like children crying over not being able to get exactly what they want, they will get exactly what they don't want.
As a friend of mine likes to say, in one sense a moral victory is a kind of victory. In another more important sense, a moral victory is a defeat.
Recent Comments