Lincoln's Decisionism and the Politics of Elimination

Abraham Lincoln's hallowed place in American memory is secure: He saved the Union, put an end to slavery, and was assassinated for these very successes. At the same time, Lincoln's many undeniable achievements came at terribleand lastingdemocratic cost. Informed by the work of Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben, this essay aspires to illuminate that cost by analyzing two cases where Lincoln exercised a sovereign decisionismone involving the exile of Ohio politician Clement Vallandigham for publicly opposing the Civil War and the draft, a second involving the mass execution of Dakota Sioux Indians for daring to rise up and enact their own sovereign prerogatives during the war. This decisionism reveals Lincoln's problematic resort to anti-political practices to deal with adversaries. Given the damage Lincoln did to American democracy, the essay also investigates what he might have done to make amends for it. Finally, it explores how Lincoln's place in American history might be remembered more agonistically, architecturally speaking, on the Mall in Washington, D.C.