The Transcendentalists understood that politics affected some of the issues about which they cared deeply, abolition foremost among them. At the same time, they felt a certain disdain for the process and the people involved in it. Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to Andrew Jackson a number of times in his journal. He wrote, for example, in a June 1840 journal entry, "The Democratic party in this country is more magnetic than the Whig. Andrew Jackson is an eminent example of it. . . . The lowest angel is better." Although certain Democratic ideas fit into the Transcendental viewpoint (that of minimal external government, for instance), political action as practiced by the Jacksonian Democrats did not have a place in the framework of Transcendental philosophy.
Moreover, when government policy and legislation — the end results of party politics — required the individual to accept an immoral situation, as in the case of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the Transcendentalists did not hesitate to urge disobedience. Civil Disobedience encapsulated not only Thoreau's thoughts but those of others in the Transcendental circle as well.
Emerson participated in the political process to the extent that his involvement forwarded the cause of abolition. Moreover, even though he did not care for the crudeness and hullabaloo of party politics and did not approve of making popular heroes out of politicians, Emerson was willing to recognize the worth and importance of a politician who conducted himself morally. Emerson voted for Abraham Lincoln. Although he remained for a time unsure of Lincoln's motivations and likely effectiveness, Lincoln won him over completely with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. From that point, Emerson, who devoted considerable thought to the subject of great men, respected Lincoln's greatness. He spoke on Lincoln at the service held in Concord on April 19, 1865, after Lincoln's assassination:
This man grew according to the need. His mind mastered the problem of the day; and, as the problem grew, so did his comprehension of it. Rarely was man so fitted to the event. In the midst of fears and jealousies, and in the Babel of counsels and parties, this man wrought with all his might and all his honesty, laboring to find what the people wanted, and how to obtain that.
Lincoln was, in short, a politician above the political process. Even though the process was flawed, Emerson could appreciate an extraordinary individual who took part in it.
