OPINION: Lincoln put the union above personal interest, and we should too

Abraham Lincoln, whose Feb. 12 birthday we honor nationwide, gave us some of America’s most famous speeches. Lincoln's eloquence resonates with us in this present time of peril to our democracy. We should honor Lincoln properly by heeding his message.

In one of his earliest speeches, Lincoln expressed his fervent belief that the law must hold sway over individual passions. 

By individual passions, Lincoln meant the effort by plantation owners to preserve slavery. Their passionate efforts to keep other humans in a permanent state of bondage posed a threat to the rule of law.

As their grip on political and cultural control slipped, supporters of slavery began to disregard certain laws. They openly rebelled. 

Slave owners viewed the federal government as, “their deadliest bane.”

Lincoln understood that such lawlessness leads to insurrections, and that mob rule would destroy America’s democracy.

Professor Heather Cox Richardson describes these events in a recent essay. She concludes that Lincoln’s appeal for the rule of law “reverberates far beyond the specific crises” of the 19th Century. In other words, Lincoln’s warning bears on the situation we face in the U.S. today. 

It is not hard to connect her implied warning about today’s lawlessness to certain contemporary American politicians.

The connections begin with our disgraced former president who regularly thumbs his nose at laws he doesn’t like, and at the justice system in general.  

He attempted to interfere with vote counting, he stole top secret government documents and refused to return them, and he was the catalyst for the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

He is running again, promising to have the Justice Department drop all charges against him, and instead prosecute his political opponents. He refers to convicted Jan. 6 offenders as hostages and political prisoners, and will pardon them if re-elected. He personally defames and incites violence against judges, jurors, and prosecutors performing their public duties, as well as anyone else who opposes him, including other candidates.

He exerts so much influence that his disregard for the law and his disdain for the justice system spread like a disease to his supporters, leading them to break laws too.

The FBI reports that “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists (AGAAVEs)” now constitute our greatest threat of domestic terrorism. 

And yet, the Idaho GOP recently advanced a bill that would redefine domestic terrorism as activity associated with only foreign groups. If this bill had been law in the 1990s, the Aryan Nations bombings in Coeur d’Alene could not have been considered domestic terrorism. The Oklahoma City Bombing — not terrorism. Members of the KKK — not terrorists under this bill’s definition. 

This is chilling. 

Turning a blind eye to lawlessness and oppression defies Lincoln’s legacy.

And yet, red state governors, including Gov. Little, ignore the U.S. Supreme Court and further the former president's contempt for the rule of law by sending state police officers to obstruct U.S. Customs And Border Patrol agents in Texas.

In Kootenai County, the sheriff openly favors Republican groups, making his partisanship unmistakable. And he condemns library books he doesn’t like.

Our county assessor secretly surveils his own employees and bungles his important responsibilities, causing huge mistakes in property tax assessments.

Trustees at our community college create a hostile environment on their own campus, misappropriate and squander public funds, and generate enough chaos to threaten the college’s accreditation, its reputation, and its very survival.

Trustees at the Community Library Network impose their religious views on acquisition and lending policies, and hours of operation. They repeat  the community college trustees' misuse of public funds.

All these public officials threaten to destroy and/or bankrupt the institutions they were sworn to preserve, and on which we all depend.

Lincoln pointed out that such officials would “achieve distinction through destruction.” 

No federal, state, or local official has the right to ignore the law or to ignore a court order. Disdain for the law among elected officials is precisely the threat to democracy that Professor Cox Richardson spoke of in her essay.

No matter the office or institution, the rule of law must prevail over individual passions. That’s how to appropriately honor Abraham Lincoln on his birthday and to build a more perfect union.

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Evan Koch is chairman of the Kootenai County Democratic Central Committee.