Executive Summary
“‘Work Is the Main Thing’” by Lewis E. Lehrman (1995)
Lewis E. Lehrman’s essay argues that Abraham Lincoln’s most important and least-remembered contribution was not simply winning the Civil War or ending slavery, but articulating and advancing a coherent economic philosophy centered on free labor, equal opportunity, and national economic growth. While the public rightly honors Lincoln as the emancipator and wartime leader, Lehrman contends that for most of his political career Lincoln’s primary focus was building the institutional and policy foundations of a free-market commercial society.
Core Thesis
Lincoln treated slavery first and foremost as an economic system. He defined it as an involuntary exchange of labor enforced by coercion and therefore as theft. Free labor—the right of individuals to sell their own work, accumulate capital, and rise—was its moral and practical opposite. Lincoln’s opposition to slavery rested on both ethical principle and economic theory: a society based on coerced labor could never produce the growth, mobility, and broad opportunity he believed America should offer.
Economic Philosophy
Lehrman describes Lincoln’s thought as a blend of Jeffersonian sentiment and Hamiltonian policy. Lincoln repeatedly grounded his politics in the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that all men are created equal. At the same time, he explicitly rejected equality of result. In an 1857 speech he clarified that the Founders meant equality in the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—not equality in talent, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. What mattered was an “open field and a fair chance” for every person’s industry and enterprise.
On practical policy Lincoln favored:
- Protective tariffs rather than direct internal taxation, which he feared would require “swarms of locusts” (tax collectors) roaming the countryside.
- Active government support for infrastructure—canals, railroads, banks, and turnpikes—to create an integrated national market, raise productivity, and expand opportunity.
- A sound and uniform national currency, which he regarded as one of government’s most imperative duties.
He saw no inherent conflict between labor and capital. Capital, in his view, was simply the accumulated product of free labor of mind and muscle. The ideal American trajectory was for a worker to labor, save, become an independent producer, and eventually hire others. Government’s proper role was to foster the conditions in which this mobility could occur.
Historical Consequences
Lehrman credits Lincoln’s economic vision with world-historical effects. By preserving the Union and deliberately promoting industrial power, Lincoln helped create the integrated free-market economy that later enabled the United States to contain Imperial Germany, defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and ultimately oppose the Soviet empire. Without that economic foundation, Lehrman argues, the twentieth-century struggle against totalitarian powers based on race and class distinctions would have lacked the decisive American counterweight.
Closing Reflection
The essay ends by acknowledging the enduring personal enigma of Lincoln himself—a self-made man of humble origins and limited formal education whose brief, luminous career left no political dynasty. Lehrman presents him as the archetypal American whose professional achievement embodied the very system of free labor and opportunity he spent his life defending.
In short, Lehrman’s piece reframes Lincoln less as a purely moral or military figure and more as the architect of an American economic order based on free labor, equal opportunity, and productive growth—the system that, in the author’s view, ultimately underwrote the nation’s later global power.
Lewis E. Lehrman (full name Lewis Edward Lehrman), 1938–2026, was a businessman, investor, historian, philanthropist, and one-time political candidate best known for helping build the Rite Aid drugstore chain, mounting a strong but unsuccessful 1982 run for governor of New York, and (with partner Richard Gilder) creating major institutions that promote the study of American history, especially Abraham Lincoln.
Origins and Family
He was born August 15, 1938, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, along with his twin brother Gilbert. His parents were Benjamin Sachs Lehrman (who ran and expanded the family wholesale grocery business) and Rose (Herman) Lehrman (described as stylish with a strong interest in the arts; she largely directed the children’s education).
The family was Jewish. His paternal grandfather, Louis Lehrman, was a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe (the area around what is now Kublitz, Belarus/Russia). Louis arrived as a young man, started as a peddler selling shoelaces and sugar, and founded the wholesale grocery firm Louis Lehrman & Son in Harrisburg. That business later evolved into the foundation for Rite Aid. Lewis had two sisters, Lois (who married Alex Grass, a key figure in Rite Aid’s growth) and Barbara.
He often framed his own story as an immigrant-success narrative and emphasized America’s open opportunities for hard work and enterprise—themes that also shaped his reading of Lincoln.
Education
- Early schooling in Harrisburg (including Harrisburg Academy).
- High school: The Hill School, an elite boarding/prep school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.
- Yale University: B.A. in History (1960). He was a Carnegie Teaching Fellow and taught there briefly.
- Harvard University: M.A. in History as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow.
He initially considered an academic career in history but decided the pace of pure scholarship did not suit his temperament and returned to the family business.
Business Career
Lehrman played a major role in transforming the family wholesale grocery operation into Rite Aid, which became one of the largest U.S. drugstore chains. He served as president (roughly 1969–1977) during a period of rapid expansion (stores and sales grew dramatically). He later stepped back from day-to-day management, remaining involved in executive roles into the early 1980s before fully exiting to pursue other interests.
Afterward he moved into investment banking and management: senior advisor and managing director roles at Morgan Stanley, then founder and senior partner of his own firm, L.E. Lehrman & Co., based in Greenwich, Connecticut. He also ran a farm and maintained other private investments.
Politics
In 1982 he ran as the Republican and Conservative Party candidate for Governor of New York, self-funding a high-profile campaign (famous for his red suspenders). He lost narrowly to Democrat Mario Cuomo (by roughly two percentage points / about 180,000 votes). It was his only major electoral bid. He was active in Reagan-era conservative circles, advocated supply-side economics and a return to a gold standard / sound money policies, and founded or supported groups such as the Lehrman Institute (public-policy research) and Citizens for America.
Intellectual Work and Views
Lehrman was a serious student of American history and monetary policy. He co-founded (with Richard Gilder) the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, which built one of the largest private collections of American historical documents, supports teacher education and classroom resources nationwide, and funds major prizes (including the Lincoln Prize). They also established the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale. In 2005 he and Gilder received the National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush.
He wrote several books, including:
- Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point
- Works on Lincoln’s economic thought and free-labor philosophy
- Studies comparing Lincoln and Churchill
- Books and essays advocating a gold standard and analyzing the history of money
The 1995 essay you shared (“Work Is the Main Thing”) is characteristic of his view of Lincoln: he stressed Lincoln’s focus on free labor, equal opportunity (not equal results), infrastructure and a national market, sound currency, and the cooperative relationship between labor and capital—seeing these as the deeper foundations of American prosperity and power. Lehrman described himself in classical-liberal terms (Hamilton, Lincoln, free markets, growth).
Personal Life
In 1966 he married Louise Lombard Stillman (from a prominent New York Episcopalian/WASP family; her father was a Time Inc. executive). It was an interfaith marriage at the time. They had five children: Leland (R. Leland), John, Thomas, Eliza, and Peter. By the time of his death there were 15 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren; one grandchild is named Lincoln. He repeatedly described Louise and their family as the center of his life.
In 1985 he converted to Roman Catholicism. Sources note it was a private decision that surprised and angered some of his earlier Jewish political supporters; he did not publicly elaborate on the reasons.
Later Years and Death
He lived for many years in Greenwich, Connecticut. He continued writing, philanthropy, and historical work even as Parkinson’s disease progressed. His autobiography, The Sum of It All, appeared in 2023. He died on March 11, 2026, at home in Greenwich at age 87 from complications of Parkinson’s, surrounded by family.
That’s the core public record: immigrant-rooted merchant family → elite education → rapid business success → high-stakes (but unsuccessful) political run → long second act as investor, Lincoln scholar, and major funder of American history education. He consistently returned to themes of free labor, opportunity, sound money, and the primary sources of American history.
