Preston Manning and a House Divided

"The Reform party is much closer to what you would call conservative Republican ... The Reform party is very much a modern manifestation of the Republican movement in Western Canada; the U.S. Republicans started in the western United States. The Reform Party is very resistant to the agenda and the demands of the secessionists, and on a very deep philosophical level." Stephen Harper Speech to Council for National Policy 1997

The Reform party and in particular, Stephen Harper, have been accused by their critics of being too American. Or more accurately, too Republican-American.

So it's important to understand the close connection to the American Republican Party that transcends everything else. Preston Manning believed himself to be Abraham Lincoln. I don't mean that he thought of himself as the reincarnation, but he had read his biography and the Lincoln-Douglas debates and believed that the situation in Canada was not unlike the situation in the U.S. that brought on the Civil War.

And he fancied that he was the only person who could "get tough" with Quebec and lead the "new" Canada. And he didn't rule out a 'Civil War' if that's what it took.

Preston Manning is not averse to raising the spectre of violence when he discusses the Quebec issue. He does not raise the possi­bility of violence often, but when he does, he does not elaborate on what he means — another use of deliberate ambiguity. He has, however, planted the seed, evoking the image of violence often enough to establish it in the public mind.

... At the November, 1989 Reform Party Assembly, Manning staked out his tough stance on Quebec, ending his speech with the fol­lowing words, in reference to his terms for accepting Quebec in Canada: "Such terms will be judged satisfactory if they are fair and advantageous to Canada [and] if the new relationship can be established and maintained without violence ... " No one in Canada was anticipating violence over Quebec at this time, and there was little evidence that the Meech Lake impasse was about to dominate the politics of the country.

Preston Man­ning was already positioning himself as the man who would, in his own words, "call Quebec's bluff."

Manning raised the possibility of violence again at a time of maximum national media exposure — the 1991 Assembly in Saskatoon. This time he used his favourite analogy: the conditions which led to the Civil War in the U.S. While clearly establishing that his way, "the Canadian way," of dealing with Quebec, was through negotiations, he once again tossed out the spectre of violence, asking the rhetorical question, "Surely no Canadian wants our secession crisis to come to this [civil war]?" No one but Preston Manning had suggested it might.

Preston Manning's fondness for quoting Abraham Lincoln in reference to Canada's "secession" crisis is well established: in speeches to businessmen in Toronto, at the Americas Society in New York, in his address to the 1991 Assembly, and in many interviews. He is fond not only of the compelling parallels; he is an admirer of Abraham Lincoln and has repeatedly suggested that the Reform Party under his leadership might accomplish what Lincoln did under the Republicans: displace one of the old-line parties.

Some — like the Edmonton Sun's Don Wanagv have suggested that Preston Manning sees himself as the future prime minister of a Canada that does not include Quebec. But ill the speech he made to the 1989 Assembly, there are echoes of Abraham Lincoln. On "behalf of western Canadians," Manning), said, "We do not want nor do we intend to leave this house ourselves. We will, however, insist that it cease to be divided." (1)

And even now when Stephen Harper's political life is threatened, he will bring out the separatist/secessionist card, like a silent dog whistle to his base supporters, who immediately draw battle lines.

This despite the fact that former Harper insider Tom Flanagan has admitted that in 2004, Stephen Harper himself attempted to form a coalition with both the NDP and Bloc, that had the full support of those separatists/secessionists.

Of course, Manning's devotion to Lincoln, was based on revisionist history, that glorifies past leaders. Lincoln's actions did end slavery, or at lest start the process, but his motivation was political, to please the 'abolitionists.' He said the right things to them, but also stated:

"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races...I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, not of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people." (2)

Lincoln was also very dictatorial, which wouldn't have been an alien concept to Manning or Harper as their governing style was fashioned, at least in part, by that of William Aberhart and Social Credit. According to Time Magazine in 1935 (3), Aberhart emulated Adolf Hitler in terms of propaganda and heavy handedness.

Lincoln extended the powers of the presidency further than any president before him. Upon learning of the attack on Fort Sumter, Lincoln immediately declared an ‘insurrection’, federalized state militias, blockaded many of the South’s largest ports, and spent $2 million on the Union Army. He did all these things without the consent of Congress. Lincoln also disrupted the democratic process by arresting 31 members of the Maryland State Legislature who were expected to vote in favor of secession from the Union.

Lincoln’s dedication to fighting a war for unity led him to strictly enforce his will against those who disagreed with him. "The unity was weaned by rhetoric and enforced by arms. It was a war proclaimed as a war for liberty, but working people would be attacked by soldiers if they dared to strike, Indians would be massacred in Colorado by the U.S. army, and those daring to criticize Lincoln’s policies would be put in jail without trial-perhaps thirty thousand political prisoners." Lincoln’s iron fist gained him many enemies in both the North and the South. (2)

He also opened mail and shut down newspapers. Dissent was definitely forbidden in Lincoln's United States and if Manning studied Lincoln as he and others have boasted, he surely knew that.

Abraham Lincoln has also been used to justify the marriage of church and state. According to David Brooks:

On Sept. 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln gathered his cabinet to tell them he was going to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He said he had made a solemn vow to the Almighty that if God gave him victory at Antietam, Lincoln would issue the decree.Lincoln's colleagues were stunned. They were not used to his basing policy on promises made to the Lord. They asked him to repeat what he'd just said. Lincoln conceded that "this might seem strange," but "God had decided the question in favor of the slaves."

I like to think about this episode when I hear militant secularists argue that faith should be kept out of politics.(4)

Another reason why we should not 'glorify' past leaders. Abraham Lincoln is not the embodiment of everything that is good and holy. Using success in battle as a message from God is not what I want to hear from a political leader.

An interesting choice of term 'militant secularists'. No war should eve be given a holy purpose or be justified as a divine mission.

The Reform movement very much encompasses that, believing that Christianity should affect every aspect of our lives. That's fine for Christians, and I applaud them, if their motives are humane and sincere.

But it's the Christian extremism that becomes a problem for me. And in government when Christian extremists determine policy for a country made up of a vast number of religions, including atheism, it becomes totalitarian.

Canadians are not anti-American, though many oppose American Imperialism. We are also, if given a choice, usually supportive of the Democrats, especially since the Republican Party has been hi-jacked by the Religious Right. And I think that's why mainstream Canada never really embraced the reform Party or their morphed Alliance Party.

It wasn't until they hijacked the Conservative brand, that we were lulled into a false of security. But in the words of Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time".

Footnotes:

1. Preston Manning and the Reform Party. By: Murray Dobbin Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing 1992 ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 218-219

2. Abraham Lincoln, Tyrant or Hero? By: Rob Helmer

3. Messiah, Major, Money, Times Magazine, September 2, 1935

4. Stuck in Lincoln's Land, By: David Brooks, New York Times,May 5, 2005

Abe Lincoln, Preston Manning and the Reform Movement

In 1982, at the Social Credit leadership convention, candidate Ken Sweigard " ... arrived dressed as U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, wearing a top hat and carrying a walking stick. His entourage, dressed in 1860s style, held placards reading "Free the Slaves" and chanted "Free the economic slaves", a reference to the social credit theory of monetary reform and opposition to the charging of interest on borrowed money." (1)

He lost to Martin Hattersley, but the following year Hattersley resigned when James Keegstra and two others were reinstated, after he had dismissed them due to their anti-Semitic views. Sweigard called Keegstra "a good Christian gentleman".

In later interviews with Keegstra, when he was being tried for hate crimes, after it was revealed that for 15 years he had been teaching his students that the Holocaust was a hoax, he blamed the Jews for killing Abraham Lincoln, calling John Wilkes Booth, a Jew. He wasn't.

In 1997 when Stephen Harper was speaking at a Council for National Policy conference in Montreal he discussed the current state of Canada's Progressive Conservative Party:

The Progressive Conservative party is very much comparable to the Whigs of the 1850s and 1860s. What is happening to them is very similar to the Whigs. A moderate conservative party, increasingly under stress because of the secession [Bloc] movement, on the one hand, and the reaction to that movement from harder line English Canadians on the other hand.

You may recall that the Whigs, in their dying days, went through a series of metamorphoses. They ended up as what was called the Unionist movement that won some of the border states in your 1860 election.

If you look at the surviving PC support, it's very much concentrated in Atlantic Canada, in the provinces to the east of Quebec. These are very much equivalent to the United States border states. They're weak economically. They have very grim prospects if Quebec separates. These people want a solution at almost any cost. And some of the solutions they propose would be exactly that. (2)

Of course the Whig Party would eventually become the Republican Party in a series of coalitions, and Abraham Lincoln would become their first president. He had been a member of the 'Whig' Party in Maryland.

Harper continues:

But I don't use this comparison of the pre-Civil War lightly. Preston Manning, the leader of the Reform party has spent a lot of time reading about pre-Civil War politics. He compares the Reform party himself to the Republican party of that period. He is very well-read on Abraham Lincoln and a keen follower and admirer of Lincoln.

I know Mr. Manning very well. I would say that next to his own father, who is a prominent Western Canadian politician, Abraham Lincoln has probably had more effect on Mr. Manning's political philosophy than any individual politician. (2)

I find that statement to be very compelling. Next to his own father ...

But Stephen Harper was not the only one to have noted Manning's obsession with the Civil War era president:

While still a teenager, he [Manning] read ... Carl Sandburg's multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, who emerged from the backwoods of Illinois to steer his country through the challenge of secession by the southern states and the bloody Civil War that ensued. That fascination with the assassinated American president and the pre-Civil War period has endured, as Manning searches for lessons to be learned and applied to the ongoing threat of Quebec secession.

In particular, he is drawn to the 1858 debates between Lincoln and southern states rights proponent Stephen Douglas, when the future of the union and the principles it should be based on were passionately argued. He claims the same has not happened in Canada, in the days leading up to the last Quebec referendum, and particularly during last spring's federal election campaign. "It seems to me our debate on this subject has been so shallow compared with what has been debated in other countries," says Manning.

After years of debating the national unity issue, many Canadians may find that opinion disingenuous - and self-serving. Others perceive more ominous undertones in Manning's historical interests. Michael Fellman, a professor of American history
at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., accuses Manning of having a "superficial understanding" of the pre-Civil War period - and its consequences.

"The Lincoln-Douglas debates and the rise of the Republican party heightened tensions and contradictions in the United States," he says, "and led to civil war because they couldn't solve the problems of the nation." George Melnyk, a Prairie historian and lecturer at the University of Calgary, wonders if Manning sees himself as a Canadian equivalent of Lincoln. "Personal mythologies are not light matters," says Melnyk, who has known the Reform leader since the 1970s. "If Preston Manning truly believes that he may one day have to play the role of Abraham Lincoln as the preserver of the unity and integrity of Canada, then the scenario of civil war is not farfetched." (3)

I believe that when Ken Seigard dressed as Abe Lincoln it was a publicity stunt, and I probably wouldn't read more into it, except that I do find on many Christian fundamentalist sites, a certain almost hero worship for Lincoln, which I will get to later.

But back to Stephen Harper:

The Reform party is much closer to what you would call conservative Republican ... The Reform party is very much a modern manifestation of the Republican movement in Western Canada; the U.S. Republicans started in the western United States. The Reform Party is very resistant to the agenda and the
demands of the secessionists, and on a very deep philosophical level. (2)

That certainly explains the close connection between the Reform Party and the Republican Party. Manning saw them as being of the same political stripe with the same history. Even if most of that history was fabricated.

Continue to Preston Manning and a House Divided

Sources:

1. "Monetary system not part of jet age, Socred leader says", Globe and Mail, July 5, 1982.

2. Full text of Stephen Harper's 1997 speech, Canadian Press, December 14, 2005

3. Preston Manning, By: Dale Eisler, Maclean's, September 22, 1997