Maintaining Democracy: Pericles and Lincoln

Pericles and Abraham Lincoln presented stirring speeches with strikingly similar themes on democracy and civic duty more than thirteen hundred years apart. Pericles viewed his Funeral Oration as a civic duty, for he said it was the law that he must obey (which, in itself, affirmed Lincoln’s overarching call to action). As a general and politician, it fell to Pericles to offer a patriotic eulogy for those who were killed after the first year of the Peloponnesian War. In it, he spoke earnestly of Athenian greatness, lauding the empire that had “been acquired by men who knew their duty and had the courage to do it.” The speech was so heartening that it almost seemed too positive and patriotic for the occasion, but he solidified the connection to the funeral when he asserted that by “magnifying the city, [he] magnified [the ones who died],” which is practically a reflexive form of the society-is-man-writ-large concept. By establishing this connection, he creates an inextricable bond between man and his state and confirms that gaining honor and glory necessitates performing one’s duty. Abraham Lincoln, before he was elected President, offers a similar vein of instruction, with a much more doom-and-gloom approach that a funeral oration could not afford. Titled “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions,” the piece immediately seems to harken back to the beginnings of democracy and Pericles himself. Lincoln talks specifically of the American system, of course, and chooses not the optimism of Pericles but rather qualifies the institution’s success with warnings against “mobocractic” rule. This dichotomy in the orators’ approaches provides a layered perspective of democracy, with Lincoln often affirming and then qualifying themes that Pericles

Nicole Fielder - Class of 2019

addresses.

           

Both speeches lead with the idea that ancestors created the great institutions of Athens and the United States on principles and left a legacy of prosperity to the current generations. The institutions began as “undecided experiment[s]” (Lincoln), but now are widely regarded as successes. There is an essential reverence that pervades public activities and creates a foundation for functional government. Pericles and Lincoln begin to diverge when Pericles talks of having “planted eternal memorials” and standing the test of time, while Lincoln believes the United States’ fifty years has yet to qualify it for immortality. There are plenty more dangers to come, especially from within. The honor and glory of the American founders has already been “harvested” (Lincoln), so while “the whole earth is the tomb of famous men” (Pericles), those histories are faded and gone due to the “silent artillery of time” (Lincoln).

Pericles centers his speech on bravery, courage, spirit, and passion – the heart component of Plato’s tripartite soul. Lincoln instead invokes the head portion, Reason, of the tripartite soul to qualify Pericles by saying, “Passion has helped us; but can do no more. It will in the future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense” (Lincoln). By doing this, Lincoln restores balance back into the democratic soul.

In all of these things, Pericles serves as an optimistic basis for flourishing democratic society, and Lincoln speaks as if he is just on the other side of its flourishing, down the road only a few years, rather than thirteen hundred. These two pieces in conjunction with one another construct a fuller picture of the essence of democratic institutions and what is required to maintain their integrity.

Nicole Fielder, of Nicholasville, Ky., is a sophomore McConnell Scholar studying economics, political science and philosophy.