Holzer at the White House
-
- February
- 13
Thursday’s column was a hypothetical discussion about what kind of approval ratings Abraham Lincoln would’ve gotten had there been scientific polling in his time.
In writing that piece, I spoke with Harold Holzer of Rye, a premier Lincoln scholar who lately has been all over the television dial in documentaries about the life, death and legacy of the 16th president. (Holzer later wrote to tell me that he disagreed with my guess that Lincoln’s poll numbers would’ve gone up slightly with the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves. Holzer’s the expert, so I bow to the master.)
Lincoln’s 200th birthday was celebrated on Thursday. Holzer was in on the festivities in Washington, D.C. He visited the president and other big shots. Holzer is the guy at the far left.
This entry was posted
on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 7:18 pm by Phil Reisman.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
| 
Phil Reisman is a veteran journalist and native of Westchester County. He began his career in 1977 as the head copy boy of a startup New York City newspaper that quickly went belly up. Reisman was not to blame for the newspaper's failure, or so he claims.
The North was abolitionist. Were there a poll taken on this question, it certainly would not include the Confederacy. In addition, black soldiers, including ex-slaves, would soon be utilized in the war effort. It seems logical and reasonable that his poll numbers would rise, disagreement from the “premier Lincoln scholar” notwithstanding.
I might add that emancipating the slaves preempted any possibility of England entering the war on the side of the South, which was a major worry at the White House at the time. The populace of England was virulently anti-slavery, had already forced anti-slave trading legislation, and their leadership knew that this Proclamation negated any further internal discussion on allying militarily with the Rebel cause. The fact that the Northern forces would no longer have to worry about foreign interference in the fighting could also do nothing but help in any Union poll.