Abraham Lincoln' Political Religion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Abraham Lincoln' Political Religion - Essay Example Even though Lincoln never proved himself to be an ardent abolitionist he strongly protested against the extension of slavery to other territories. He emphasized the concept of self-government and strongly believed that the Founders of the Constitution foresaw the abolition of slavery in America in the long run. Lincoln makes it clear that even though the Declaration of Independence was formed by the representatives of thirteen States of the confederacy out of which twelve were slaveholding communities they made provisions in the Constitution to the abolition of slave trade in the long run. However, unlike the abolitionists Lincoln sought to address the issue of slavery within the limits of the Constitution and later his speeches and presidential debates explicitly reinforce his anti-slavery sentiments. This paper seeks to explore Guelzo’s argument that the Declaration of Independence formed the Scripture of Lincoln’s political religion and in doing so the paper also sho ws how Lincoln has accommodated his political ideologies with the Constitution that binds the Union together. In his 1854 campaign one can find Lincoln upholding the constitution, the Union and the good will of the Founders. He makes it clear that the Founders were always against slavery and they took special efforts to stop the spread of slavery into the Old Northwest Territory. For him, the Founders â€Å"could not avoid the unpleasant fact that slavery already existed in the Southern states of the Union, but they had regarded its existence as an anomaly and they tolerated its continuation there as an â€Å"argument of necessity† for establishing the national Union† (Guelzo 185-86). Lincoln also goes on to purport that even Missouri winning the administration as a slave state in 1820 and its slave status was only a concession aimed at further spreading slavery into the West. One can also find Lincoln repudiating Douglas’s arguments in favor of the doctrine of self-government and popular sovereignty. While Douglas justified the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 that allowed settlers in the territories to determine through Popular Sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each territory, Lincoln was well aware of the dangers of Kansas-Nebraska. Douglas was of the opinion that â€Å"slavery had to be given its chance in the territories because it was the right of free settlers to exercise their popular sovereignty in choosing their own kind of government† (Guelzo 186) whereas Lincoln argued that popular sovereignty would subvert the principle of self-government as this would offer a choice for slavery. During his 1859 campaign speeches in the Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin Lincoln repeatedly asserted that the even though the Founders sought to restrain the spread of slavery in the territories Douglas and Kansas-Nebraska had wrecked that bargain by trying to extend slavery across the nation. While Douglas argued that popular sovereignty would enable territories to refuse slavery Lincoln held that slavery could never cease to exist unless and until it is prohibited by law. He also observed that in such territories and states where â€Å"slavery was not prohibited, it was established† and the Northerners were kept free due to the â€Å"explicit congressional legislation embodied in the Northwest Ordinance, banning the extension of slavery† rather than by the logic of popular sovereignty (Guelzo 230). Similarly, Lincoln regarded slavery as a total destruction of self-government. For him, the white man not only governs himself in self-government but also displays despotism by governing the blacks. Thus, Lincoln made

Thomas Lanier Williams III Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Thomas Lanier Williams III - Essay Example Thesis religions education and values of his grandfather had a great impact on themes and motifs used by Williams in his plays. The religious dimension is appeared in his early plays and portrayed as an important part of characters life. One of his best early one-act plays, Portrait of a Madonna, is at once a pathetic portrait of a deranged Southern spinster, precursor of Blanche DuBois of Streetcar, and a grotesque parody of the immaculate conception. Miss Collins both believes and denies belief. She has been brought up in the shadow of the Episcopal church but feels she has been abandoned by the church. Her walk in the scorching, merciless sunlight is a kind of passion, punctuated with cries to God, Jesus, and a "merciful Christ in Heaven" who show her no mercy. The recluse who believes herself pregnant wants to educate her imagined child privately, "to make sure that it doesn't grow up in the shadow of the cross and then have to walk along blocks that scorch you with terrible sunlight" (Bigsby 2004). The collapse of her belief turns her life into nightmare, as Williams makes amply clear through the tightl y woven pattern of Christian reference turned into parody and developed through imagery of light and shadow (Bigsby 2004). In Summer and Smoke the rectory is the home of a deranged woman and the angel in the park which dominates the set brings at the end not heavenly mercy or the "Eternity" inscribed at its base but the traveling salesman. The central irony of this struggle of body and soul is that by the time that Dr. John finally recognizes that human beings do have souls, Alma has given up hope and searches for satisfactions of the body alone. God's mercy comes not in the form of spiritual aid but in sleeping pills. As Alma tells the salesman, "Life is full of little mercies like that, not big mercies, but comfortable little mercies. And so we are able to keep on going." In The Rose Tatoo Serafina can shed her loneliness and prolonged grief and find love again only after she has blown out the candle under the Madonna's image. The priest is ineffectual and cannot solace her (Bloom 2003). Only in Mangiacavallo does she find renewed life. The Night ofthe Iguana gives us another ineffectual minister, the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon.Locked out of his church for heresy and fornication, Shannon rages romantically against the traditional image of God as a "senile delinquent" and wants to preach "God as Lightning and Thunder," in oblivious majesty before the terrors of the human condition. His own suffering is described by Hannah as a "voluptuous crucifixion," and her final appeal to God at the end of the play is only the last link in a chain of imagery of crucifixion and unsuccessful resurrection, of Christian belief gone awry. . Dr. John in Summer and Smoke will be married on Palm Sunday. Orpheus Descending reaches its wild climax on Easter Sunday and the lynching of Val Xavier becomes as a result a brutal parody Christian imagery becomes a means of denying Christian belief. In its quieter forms the combination produces cosmic irony; in its most violent manifestations, grotesque parody (Bigsby 2004). In the Glass Menagerie , religion is used as a unique theme which helps Williams to unveil false dreams and ideals of the character. On the level of plot, this circle of reference enhances the credibility of the dramatic situation. Given Amanda's sham