The "Spirit of America": Abraham Lincoln and the Fight for an Inclusive America

In “The Spirit of America,” (1974), Norman Rockwell
depicts a nation made from many lives and histories,
unified not by bloodlines but by a common belief in the American idea.
(Courtesy of Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA)

Abraham Lincoln’s relationship with the nativist Know Nothing movement in the 1850s is one of the most revealing tests of his political and moral character. He faced a dilemma that would have broken a lesser statesman: how to build a broad anti‑slavery coalition without capitulating to the rising tide of anti‑immigrant nativism.

Lincoln’s solution was a blend of strategic restraint and unwavering principle. 

Publicly: Discipline and Focus

Lincoln understood that many former Whigs — voters he desperately needed to stop the spread of slavery — had drifted into Know Nothing lodges. Attacking them outright would fracture the fragile anti‑Kansas Nebraska Act coalition he was trying to build.

So he did something remarkable:

He refused to take the bait.

Rather than engage nativism directly, Lincoln kept his public message laser‑focused on the moral fallacy of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He attacked it because it replaced a moral principle with a political mechanism.

The Act said:

Let the settlers decide whether slavery is allowed — “popular sovereignty”.

Lincoln said:

No human being has the right to vote on another human being’s freedom. [1]

That was the heart of his argument.

He believed you cannot use a vote — or any political mechanism — to deny another person’s rights.

He welcomed anti‑slavery Know Nothing voters into the emerging Republican coalition but without allowing any anti‑immigrant planks into the party platform.

This was not moral compromise. It was strategic triage.

Privately: Moral Outrage

Behind closed doors, Lincoln’s letters show how deeply he despised Know Nothing ideology. In an 1855 letter to his friend Joshua Speed, he wrote one of the most searing condemnations of nativism in American political history:

How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? … 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 pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure. [2]

This was Lincoln without the political filter — morally furious, uncompromising, and clear‑eyed about the stakes.

1859: The Line He Would Not Cross

Lincoln’s resolve was tested when Massachusetts passed the “Two‑Year Amendment,” delaying voting rights for naturalized citizens. Some Illinois Republicans wondered whether they should adopt similar measures to court nativist votes.

Lincoln’s answer was unequivocal.

In a public letter to German‑American leader Theodore Canisius, he rejected the amendment outright. Any policy that degraded immigrants, he argued, violated the spirit of American institutions.

I have some little notoriety for commiserating the oppressed condition of the negro; and I should be strangely inconsistent if I would favor any project for curtailing the existing rights of white men, even though born in different lands, and speaking different languages from myself. [3]

This was the moment he drew a bright line:

Anti‑slavery and anti‑immigrant politics were incompatible.

The Lesson

Lincoln’s handling of the Know Nothings shows a rare combination of political realism and moral clarity. He refused to let nativism define the Republican Party, even when it would have been politically convenient.

He understood something essential:

A nation built on the Declaration of Independence cannot define belonging by ancestry.

Lincoln’s America was not a closed inheritance. It was a shared allegiance — an “electric cord,” as he later put it, connecting anyone who embraced the principle that all people are created equal.

That belief remains one of his most enduring gifts to the American story.

From the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

Works Cited

Primary Sources

[1] Lincoln, Abraham. Speech at Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854. In Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, ed. Roy P. Basler.

[2] Lincoln, Abraham. Letter to Joshua F. Speed, August 24, 1855. In Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, ed. Roy P. Basler.

[3] Lincoln, Abraham. Letter to Theodore Canisius, May 17, 1859. In Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 3, ed. Roy P. Basler.

Secondary Sources

Foner, Eric. The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W.W. Norton, 2010.

Gienapp, William E. The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852–1856. Oxford University Press, 1987.

McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford University Press, 1988.

Anbinder, Tyler. Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s. Oxford University Press, 1992.

Holzer, Harold. Lincoln and the Immigrant. Southern Illinois University Press, 2015.

🇺🇸 Who Counts As “Us”? Lincoln Answers the Question

“The Golden Rule” (1961) by Norman Rockwell
embodies the spirit of Abraham Lincoln's answer
in 1858 - "Equality for all"

In the heat of the 1858 Senate race, Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech in Chicago that almost no one cites today — yet it contains one of his clearest statements about what it means to be American. At a moment when the country was fracturing over race, immigration, and belonging, Lincoln argued that national identity had nothing to do with ancestry and everything to do with the moral principle on which the Founders staked their revolt. It was a startlingly generous idea then, and it feels uncomfortably relevant now.

To grasp how bold this was, remember the atmosphere of 1858. The Know‑Nothing movement — a powerful, anti‑immigrant force — had swept through the North, fueled by fears that Irish and German newcomers threatened the nation’s character. They believed only certain countries of origin produced “real Americans.” Even many of Lincoln’s friends and backers had flirted with nativism. The politically safe move for him would have been silence. Instead, he took the podium in immigrant‑heavy Chicago and told his audience that their family trees were irrelevant.

Then he delivered a passage that still jolts modern readers. He noted that many foreign‑born residents — “German, Irish, French and Scandinavian” — had no blood connection to the Founders. Yet, Lincoln argued, when such newcomers look to the Declaration of Independence and encounter its claim that “all men are created equal,” they can feel just as entitled to its promise “as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh” of the men who wrote it. That principle, he said, was the “electric cord” linking all who loved freedom.

It’s important to be clear about what Lincoln was and wasn’t addressing, however. He wasn’t talking about immigration policy, borders, asylum, or unauthorized entry — those are modern debates. But he was confronting the deeper question that still drives today’s arguments about identity: Is national belonging inherited by blood, or chosen by creed? In 1858, the Know‑Nothings insisted that only certain origins and religions — Northern European, Protestant, native‑born — produced “real Americans.” Lincoln rejected that outright. He argued that the Declaration’s principle of equality, not ancestry, was the true bond of national identity.

Lincoln was doing something extraordinary. He took a nation obsessed with lineage and reframed belonging as a choice. The Declaration’s core idea — that all people are created equal — became the bond that made strangers into citizens. Anyone who embraced that principle, he argued, stood in the same moral lineage as the Founders. It was a direct rejection of the nativism surging around him.

The parallels to our own moment are hard to miss. We are once again debating whether being American is a matter of shared ancestry or shared belief. Lincoln warned against grounding people's rights in race, genealogy, or religion; doing so creates a hierarchy of privileged belonging. By rooting identity in the Declaration, he leveled the field. Today, as divisions harden around background and origin, his argument offers a way forward: look to a shared creed[*], not competing lineages.

Lincoln said the “electric cord” — his metaphor for a shared moral connection — was what kept the nation morally bound together before the Civil War. Now, as digital echo chambers and permanent outrage strain our social fabric, his idea feels quietly radical. We don’t have to share origins to be bound together — only a commitment to the same self‑evident truths.

He refused to divide the country into “us” and “them.” He refused to weaponize contempt against newcomers. He refused to treat ancestry as the measure of belonging. Instead, he insisted that the American story is open to anyone who embraces its founding moral idea. That was radical in 1858. It remains radical now.

That’s where the relevance lies. Lincoln’s creed doesn’t answer today’s policy disputes, but it does undercut the logic behind modern anti‑immigrant bias — the idea that identity is ethnic, inherited, or exclusive. His argument insists that newcomers who embrace the nation’s founding principle stand in the same moral lineage as the Founders — many of whom were themselves newcomers or the children of newcomers. The American experiment, as Lincoln understood it, was never meant to be a closed inheritance but a shared commitment to a common goal: a moral bond strong enough to link strangers across time, language, and origin. That “electric cord” still threads through the national story. Whether we still recognize it — and whether we still believe that all people are created equal are the questions we need to answer.

From the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

[*] In Lincoln’s usage, “creed” referred to a shared set of civic principles — especially the equality clause of the Declaration of Independence. It carried no religious meaning

Works Cited

[1] Lincoln, Abraham. “Speech at Chicago, July 10, 1858.” In The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, vol. 2, 499–500. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953.

🌍 Immigration in Lincoln’s America: The Question Stayed — The Needs Changed

Immigrants entering NYC circa 1850s

People often reach for Abraham Lincoln when talking about immigration today. Sometimes the comparisons are fair. Sometimes they’re not. The truth, however, is more interesting than either side usually admits.

To understand what Lincoln can teach us now, we have to start with the world in which he lived — then look at the world we live in now — and resist the temptation to pretend they are the same.

🌄 Immigration THEN: A Growing Nation With Land to Fill

In the mid‑19th century, the United States was a young, expanding country with enormous stretches of unsettled land. Railroads, farms, mines, and cities needed workers. Immigration wasn’t just tolerated — it was often desired.

Lincoln saw newcomers as a source of national strength. He opposed the nativist Know‑Nothing movement and welcomed immigrants as partners in building the country. Speaking to German-born citizens in 1861, he said:

“If there are any abroad who desire to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to throw aught in their way.” [1]

His support for immigration was rooted in the needs of a growing nation and in his belief that America’s promise was universal.

⚠️ Immigration NOW: A Political Fear Lever

Today, immigration occupies a very different place in American politics. 

Instead of filling a vast frontier, immigration is often used as:

• a symbol of cultural anxiety
• a tool for political mobilization
• a way to frame “us vs. them” narratives
• a pressure point in elections

But the material conditions have changed; the political incentives have changed; the national conversation has changed.

So no — the immigration debate of the 1850s is not the immigration debate of the 2020s.

And that’s exactly why Lincoln’s relevance requires careful handling.

🔍 So Is There a Modern Lesson? Yes — But Not the One People Expect

The lesson is not:

• “Lincoln welcomed immigrants, so we should too.”
• “Immigration was good then, so it’s good now.”
• “The situations are identical.”

Because the reasons and the situations are different.

The real lesson — the one that does travel across time — is this: Lincoln refused to let or use the fear of outsiders as a political weapon.

The Know-Nothings

Even when it was popular. Even when it was politically useful. Even when the Know‑Nothings — a "nativist" party [*] — was gaining influence and trying to claim Lincoln as its figurehead, he refused to be used. 

They believed Lincoln might be tempted by what they could offer — not a presidential nomination, not real leadership, but something subtler. They wanted his name. His reputation. His moral authority. His ability to draw ordinary voters. They hoped he would lend them credibility, soften their harsher edges, and give their movement a veneer of respectability. In short, they wanted to borrow Lincoln’s integrity to legitimize their cause.

But Lincoln saw the deeper danger. He understood that their anti‑immigrant, anti‑Catholic and anti-black ideology — and the exclusionary spirit behind it — violated the very promise of the Declaration. He refused to trade principle for convenience, or to let his popularity be used as a mask for exclusion.

In a letter to a friend in 1855, Lincoln reassured him that he wasn’t interested in joining them at all. "I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be?" [2]

He warned that if the country continued drifting toward the Know-Nothings' spirit of nativism, the nation’s founding promise would be hollowed out. He wrote that if they ever gained political control, the Declaration itself would soon read:

"'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.'"

And then, with his signature dry wit, he added what would happen if they ever gained control:

“I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].”

He wasn’t talking about acreage.

He was talking about character.

🧭 The Compatibility Question, Answered Plainly

You’re right to sense a mismatch. The conditions of immigration then and now are not compatible. But the temptation to weaponize fear is absolutely compatible. 

That’s where Lincoln’s relevance lives.

He believed that degrading immigrants violated the nation’s founding principle of equality. He believed that liberty could not be selective. And he believed that a republic built on fear would eventually destroy itself.

Those beliefs are not tied to the 1860s.

They are tied to human nature.

⭐ The Modern Lesson Isn’t About Immigration — It’s About Integrity

Lincoln’s stance teaches something broader and more durable:

• Don’t trade principle for political convenience
• Don’t weaponize fear
• Don’t degrade people to win power
• Don’t abandon equality when it becomes inconvenient

These are not 19th‑century lessons.

They are democratic lessons.

They apply whether the country is 30 states or 50, frontier or metropolis, agrarian or industrial.

✨ Closing Reflection

The America of Lincoln’s time welcomed immigrants because it needed people. The America of our time debates immigration for different reasons entirely. But the lesson that survives is not about land or labor — it’s about character. Lincoln refused to create or to use fear of outsiders as a political weapon, even when it was popular. That refusal, not the demographics of the 1860s, is the part of his legacy that still speaks to us.

A topic in the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

[*] The American or "Know Nothing Party" was an anti-immigrant political party of the 1850's. The term nativism is the political use of fear of immigrants to protect the political power of the native‑born voters.

🎩 Lincoln warned us about "weaponized contempt" — 170 years before it became the norm. Abraham Lincoln and the Weaponization of Contempt: Insights from the Springfield Scott Club Speech