Petrulakis: Get right with your American Heritage this week

By George Petrulakis

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"The first task of every politician is to get right with Lincoln," a U.S. senator from Illinois once counseled.

While politicians must still get right with him, or at least still find value invoking him, many intellectuals in the 50 years since Everett Dirksen's observation instead have charged Lincoln with all manner of wrongs.

The indictments abound. And they sting.

Modesto-area students, parents: Scholarships available

Lincoln was a racist. Lincoln was a dictator.

Less harshly, Lincoln was a hypocrite, they say, or the father of big government, or he did not really end slavery. Some excuse euphemistically: "Lincoln was a child of his age."

Against these, a remnant respects Lincoln and tries to first understand him on his terms, not ours. Then, with that earned understanding, they might measure him by the timeless standards of statesmanship or a time-bound context of today.

Among these is Daniel Farber, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, who will deliver this year's American Heritage lecture to high school juniors and seniors competing for scholarships.

The students are asked to identify the three constitutional issues in Lincoln's presidency that have the greatest applicability to our contemporary challenges.

Farber is well armed to tutor students in this year's version of the lecture series, suggested by U.S. District Judge Frank Damrell and created by Bee editors and local educators in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

First, Farber's work on Lincoln involves many questions similar to those we have faced about individual liberties during national crisis from Sept. 11 through today. Surely our stresses are nothing like those of Civil War severity, but a certain type of inquiry recurs.

Second, Farber's thoughtful book, "Lincoln's Constitution," was a much-needed update to the entire question of Lincoln's effect on our blueprint for self- government.

Almost unbelievably, the themes chosen by Farber appear to not have been tackled in book form in four score years, minus three.

The professor serves a trim yet ample treatment of Lincoln and constitutional legal history. In just 200 pages, he furnishes historical background and constitutional analysis both the novice and the veteran Lincoln scholar may savor.

Finally, in subsequent work combining his view of Lincoln with his study of constitutional law, he explains how the Founder's Constitution was changed forever by Lincoln and after his death with the addition of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.

Farber sees the trajectory over time, it seems, as bumpy yet eventually always upward progress from the Founders' Constitution to Lincoln's Constitution to the "constitutional law we have today," which we would not have without Lincoln.

Others might argue that the Founders' constitutional vision was completed by Lincoln, but tragically derailed by Jim Crow, which led to untold human suffering and the severest of political consequences, including certain constitutional distortions. So, at least a part of the constitutional law we have today, instead of unending progress, countenances a selective denial of "certain unalienable Rights." That debate will claim more time and territory in coming years.

For the moment, though, buy and read Farber's book. Agree or argue with him.

Take the kids to hear the lecture, whether or not they are competing for scholarship money. Ruminate. Discuss. Host a book club session, maybe even with adults.

In short, act in the cause of civic education, an education in liberty and equality of opportunity, or some other aspect of an education worthy of free men, women and families.

Only by getting right with your American Heritage can there be a better American century with wider liberty and prosperity and less of the smiley serfdom our rulers want to currently dole out.

Petrulakis, a Modesto attorney, is member of a local committee organizing Lincoln Bicentennial observances.