George Washington as Founding Father stands apart from us at an emotional distance. When we think of the two Roosevelts, Theodore and Franklin, one looms larger than life, bold and outspoken, and more than a little intimidating if we were granted an evening with him. The other, a patrician almost regal. Thomas Jefferson, the awe-inspiring intellectual, was paid a fitting tribute by John F. Kennedy when he greeted a group of Nobel laureates in the east room. JFK joked that never had so much intellect been gathered in that room since Jefferson dined there alone. Even Ronald Reagan, though he had a Lincolnesque folksy charm, had an image shaped by the mythology of film and the legends of the American West. When he left us, we could envision the iconic heroic cowboy, his mission done, riding alone into the sunset. Our image of Abraham Lincoln may be similarly iconic: His memorial in Washington is our American temple to democracy and freedom under the law. Modeled after Grecian temples, the memorial portrays Lincoln gazing down upon us, the armrests of his throne being likenesses of two bound documents: the Declaration and the Constitution. But Lincoln saw himself simply as the proof of the potential of ordinary men in a free republic. Compare the temple in Washington with the simple shack in the woods of Kentucky, or the rough-hewn village of New Salem, Ill., where he came to manhood. Rarely in history has such a giant step been taken by a man of such common beginnings.
An early friend and mentor, David Davis, described him thus: “From the humblest poverty, without education, or the means of attaining it; unaided by wealth or influential family connections, he rose, solely, by the strength of his intellect and the force of his character, to the highest position in the world.” Indeed, Lincoln somehow always strikes us as the type of man we could sit down with for a friendly chat next to a glowing woodstove on a cold winter day, or to fall in by his side on a spring evening as he leaves the White House for a stroll along the banks of the Potomac and would welcome our company for a little “jawing.” On Feb. 12, America will observe the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Just three weeks before that date, the world witnessed the inauguration of our first president of African descent, one who then led us in commemoration of the birth of the “Great Emancipator.” Regardless of political beliefs, passions, and feelings regarding the nation's most recent election, or our hopes or anxieties about the new administration, Feb. 12 is a day of celebration, remembrance, and soul-searching for all Americans. Universal Truths If we did have that chance, a miraculous chance to actually talk to Abraham Lincoln, what might he say to us now? What might he advise? Of course he himself would be filled with questions for us. Has the Republic survived? Did the wounds of war heal? Are we strong and united? Did we ever complete that railroad to California? And most importantly, Are all men now indeed equal? Many of our answers would cheer him and fill him with pride as we recount all that America has accomplished, reuniting, struggling toward equality for all men and women, going forth to literally save the world from tyranny, mastering flight, and planting a flag on the moon. But more than a few things we might say would cause his brow to furrow. If given such a moment, who among us would be unable to conceal our awe, and then ask Lincoln, “What do you think we should do now, Mr. President?” It is easy for any of us, especially those from the Republican side, to take the words of Lincoln and shape them to our wishes and desires. Quoting Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR or Reagan to fit the moment is easy enough, but in a larger sense, supremely unfair, for the voices of the past cannot reply to how we have quoted them, cannot bestir themselves and whisper back, “That is not what I meant.” And yet there are some things he would share that could be universal truths for all citizens of our Republic in this new time of crisis, words that could and should resonate regardless of political party, ideology, social standing, or race. Perhaps his first words to us would be similar to these: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.”
That is what Lincoln wrote in his annual address to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862. The context of the moment must be considered. It was not a moment of triumph. In fact, it was a time of deep despair. The Civil War was approaching its third year with no end in sight, other than the prospect of yet more pain and suffering. Less than two weeks after he penned those words, more than 12,000 Union troops would be killed or wounded at Fredericksburg, a battle fought but 40 miles south of Washington. In terms of comparative population, that one day at Fredericksburg would be the equal today of every one of our soldiers in Iraq being annihilated in a single, bloody defeat. And yet, Lincoln endured, and he offered words of solace to those who suffered but maintained the higher ideal that the sacrifice in the end must be worth something to our future, the legacy he must leave to generations yet unborn. “We cannot escape history,” Lincoln tells us today with a voice from our collective past. “The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.” Lincoln himself never succumbed to the overwhelming problems of the moment. He realized, instead, the far broader issues of the ebb and flood tides of history. In one of his speeches, he spoke of his dream of an America a hundred years hence, the America of 1960, reunited and spanning a continent, strong, confident, prosperous, and a beacon of light unto the world. He showed us that, no matter what the trial of the moment, we must keep our eyes on the prize, as Martin Luther King Jr. would declare a century later. That prize was a future of an America united, an America in which all would be free; one that was a sacrifice worth fighting for. That alone is a worthy lesson to every American today. That even as we struggle with events in the weeks and months ahead, we should think of history, a future history of a hundred years hence and how we will be judged then. Perhaps easy enough to say and write such things, but the crisis and troubles of the moment consume so much of our lives on a daily basis. We might then leave questions of long-term consequence to turn to Lincoln about the stock market, of our collapsing 401(k)s, our plummeting house values, spiraling deficits, unemployment, and concerns about who will pay for these things called Social Security and Medicare. Such problems to him? He'd likely shake his head and smile sadly, remembering the long months of tilling a field, only to see a Midwestern storm sweep all away in a minute, or chuckle sadly and recall a store he once owned in New Salem that became famous for its debt and ultimate failure. Or then, with head bowed, recall so much that was infinitely more painful. We all know of his day at Gettysburg and what is cited now as perhaps the most famous speech in the history of the English language, but too few know that a year earlier he had visited another field of battle, a place that is just an hour's drive northwest of Washington, the valley of Antietam Creek in western Maryland. On Sept. 17, 1862, along the banks of the Antietam was fought the single bloodiest day of battle in American history. About 23,000 were killed or wounded in little more than 12 hours — a battle that the “spin doctors” of that time called a Union victory, but in reality was a ghastly, bloody draw, a harbinger of yet more suffering to come. Several weeks after the battle, Lincoln went there to visit “his” army, the Army of the Potomac.
Those of us who go there today will find that, unlike the overly commercialized Gettysburg, where souvenir stands sell T-shirts on ground where men once died, Antietam is quiet and contemplative, the rolling landscape studded with monuments and silent cannons, the air filled with the scent of farms and orchards. But on the day Lincoln was there, it was still a recent battlefield. Field hospitals filled with thousands of wounded lined Antietam Creek. It had rained heavily in the weeks after the fight, and hundreds of shallow graves had been flooded out. The air was thick with the cloying smell of death. Abraham Lincoln walk-ed those fields, saw the pale, drawn faces of the wounded, the hollow eyes of suddenly very old men of but 18 or 19 years of age who had seen far too much and in a latter age would have been diagnosed as numbed with post-traumatic stress. It is easy for us today to glorify that war and to forget the depth of its misery. If you wish to imagine the faces of Civil War soldiers, do not look to clean and well-scrubbed re-enactors; turn instead to the dark, harsh World War II drawings of Bill Mauldin or Tom Lea, or again watch the beginning of Saving Private Ryan rather than the antiseptic Gettysburg. That is more like Lincoln saw.
What solace could Lincoln offer to the families of those who had lost their sons, fathers, their entire world, at Antietam, Shiloh, Gettysburg, or the burning forests of the wilderness? In his famed letter to a mother who, at the time, was believed to have lost all five sons in the war, he wrote: “I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. “I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.” Lincoln, a man many describe as prone to deep emotions and chronic despair, ultimately did not let the burden of his office blind him to the task, to the “unfinished task remaining before us.” That even though a mother was believed to have lost all her sons, that years hence there must be a higher reason for it. To him, that reason is the freedom we enjoy today. Yes, the Republic faces problems now in our time, he might tell us. Filled with emotion, he might very well fall silent with memories of all he saw and endured.
Distant echoes to us now, and yet if he were walking with us today, the memories for him would still be so terribly real and painful. In his silence we might, at last, be tempted to whisper a closing with a far more modern turn of phrase: “And we think we've got problems.” Lincoln was not a member of any organized church, an issue that drew the ire of more than a few overly zealous critics of his day. (Ronald Reagan faced similar criticism.) Still, he was a man of deep and abiding faith. He saw the intersection of faith and the relationship of a free Republic to the will of God to be an extraordinary thing and believed that American “exceptionalism” came from that foundation. Even the most casual student of his writings cannot help but note the continual references to God's will, to heart-felt prayers, and a meter in his style that sounds at times as if it comes straight from the King James Bible. Scholars will note the 14 references to God and the two quotes from the Bible in the 703 words of his second inaugural address. His proclamation declaring the last Thursday of November to be a day of “Thanksgiving” was not a call to an overindulgence in eating, followed by a mad frenzy of shopping, but was instead a passionate call that, even in such a time of deep crisis as the Civil War, Americans should turn to their creator with thanks and prayers for the blessings given to our nation. Scandal and Mudslinging In a present-day conversation with Lincoln, if given the chance to observe modern political discourse, he would, of course, find much of it to be disconcerting. The violent disagreements between political opponents today, with all the negativity of campaigning, the accusations and counteraccusations, the chicanery, and the occasional outright fraud, would disturb him, but probably not surprise him in the least. It has, unfortunately, been part and parcel of our political discourse since the first days of the Republic and was rampant in his time as well. At about the time he first served as a congressman, one senator literally drew a pistol and threatened a colleague during a debate on the Senate floor. Shortly before the war, a congressman nearly beat a senator to death with a cane while the victim sat at his desk on the Senate floor.
Mudslinging was a well-known term in Lincoln's world and was, at times, literally true, given the dirt streets liberally covered with horse droppings. Bribery was out of control and openly shameless. Cost overruns on military contracts were more absurd then than now. Even in his own house, there was political scandal when his wife went on what can only be described as an outrageous shopping spree to redecorate the White House. So then, as now, there was nothing new when it came to dirty politics, negativity, and scandal. But on the other side of the ledger, the failure to have an open acknowledgement of the place of God in both personal and public lives would be a silence he would find truly disturbing. The modern term multiculturalism was something he would have embraced when it came to religious tolerance and acceptance. At a time when Catholicism was viewed with deep suspicion, (and viciously attacked in the press by Thomas Nast, the famed political cartoonist of his day) Lincoln spoke out for the rights of Irish Catholics and for Jews, and he set the remarkable precedent of giving legal protection to the Quakers by exempting them from military service. In a conversation with us today, he would, without doubt, ask us what is wrong with acknowledging God in our public discourse and respecting those who do believe. And he would suggest gently that maybe a little more humility and tolerance would be in order when God is mentioned in the public square, classrooms, and government offices.
One of the legendary hallmarks of Lincoln is, of course, his humor, his love of wit, practical jokes, and the turning aside of criticism often with a touch of self-deprecation. Once, when criticized that he too often made light of the tragedies that abounded in his time, his reply was that, without such humor, he surely would go mad instead. It is a lesson he would share with all of us now. Fortunately, we've been blessed with a few more leaders with such style. FDR was known for enjoying a good joke and would laugh heartily, then turn minutes later to the grim task of fighting a global war. His contemporary, Winston Churchill, was noted for his sly, though at times barbed, humor. JFK could disarm an entire press corps with a charming smile and a quick wit. Perhaps the greatest master of our times was Ronald Reagan, well known for that wide grin and the sparkle in his eyes that could bring a smile to friends and political foes even in the most tense of moments. It is a lesson all of us could take to heart and, if mastered by the new administration, will serve our next president well. A smile can indeed turn aside anger, a joke that pokes fun at oneself can convey humility and a good sense of being well-grounded, and convey as well that we could find common ground if we all just “lightened up” a bit. Courageous Compassion On the other side of his humor, the stories of Lincoln's deep sense of love and compassion are legend. His letter to a grieving mother is but one example. An act of courage, practiced faithfully, was to visit the hospitals that surrounded Washington, and were deployed inside the Capitol and other office buildings at one point. Such visits were no public-relations gimmick prompted by advice from a focus group.
There was no photo opportunity as he pinned a medal or two, shook a few hands, and left. In the tradition of his time, he would take flowers and baskets of fruit, and he would go alone to spend most of the day. The poet Walt Whitman, a volunteer nurse, spoke of seeing him, eyes filled with pain over the suffering of others, manfully carrying on in what he saw as his task, not just as a president, but as someone who felt a genuine need to “be there,” and to offer hope and understanding as a compassionate, caring citizen. One of the most poignant stories about Lincoln relates how, when visiting a hospital, he took time to kneel by the bedside of a dying Confederate soldier and pray with him. We are accustomed today to the thought, or at least the hope, that our gallant wounded veterans are receiving the best medical attention in the history of the world and are properly outraged when this is not the case. Consider the medical conditions of 1863, the horrific nature of the types of wounds inflicted by 12-pound shot fired at close range and .58-caliber soft-lead bullets, combined with medical technology that was little better than medieval. Lincoln faced such sights, often on a daily basis, and would spend hours with men grievously injured. He would then return to the White House to the grim task of ordering that the struggle must continue, and then the next day return again to offer solace, prayers for the dying, and words of hope. The courage it must have taken and the example it offered was, by the end of the war, known by the entire nation, North and South. A leader today who follows such an example, and leaves the press corps behind, would be an inspiration for all of us. (continues below)
His compassion extended far beyond those suffering because of the war. There was always a moment to be found to talk to a stranger while out for a walk (and if only in this modern world a president could again just step out of the White House, without fanfare and swarms of security, to take a stroll down to the Lincoln Memorial, or stop for coffee at a nearby shop or office and chat for awhile before going back to work). Though as a young man Lincoln was physically as tough as seasoned hickory, and according to legend could throw any wrestler in the county, he was known for extreme gentleness to an injured animal, would “lose” a bill for a family facing tough times even as his store floundered, and took on more than one case simply because it was the right thing to do even though the client had no money.
One of the more interesting parallels between Lincoln and our next administration is the age of their children. Our nation still remembers with fondness the White House of John F. Kennedy, and three generations before the rambunctious gaggle that T.R. brought to Washington. It gives a touch to a first family that can be refreshing, and our next president won the admiration of many for trying to give his children a normal life in the midst of a modern campaign, as Lincoln did with his children. Such might be one of the lighter connections between the 16th and the 44th presidents, and it is easy to imagine Lincoln walking by the White House today, hearing children laughing within, and smiling. And yet, the White House with all of its family legends is a place that holds within its very existence memories of challenges, crisis, and even fear. Within its confines, Lincoln would be handed the casualty lists from the field of Fredericksburg and, voice breaking, ask aloud how he would now explain such tragedy to the nation. The White House is also the place where another president, wracked daily with excruciating pain, who used a wheelchair and had steel leg braces, would hear of Pearl Harbor, Bataan, and the Bulge. It's where another young and relatively untried president would face the very real prospect of a global nuclear war that could destroy civilization. It is where so many other presidents would wrestle with war and rumors of war, famines and storms, economic collapse, cities shattered by disasters of nature, and the mad passions of men. What would Lincoln say to any of them and not just the next who will sit in the White House and pace its corridors late at night? Yet again, a quote from his annual address to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” (continues below)
Last Best Hope In what we define as a far more sophisticated age, a president has a wealth of resources to turn to; in fact, such myriad sources and advice that it is easy to be overwhelmed. Yet ultimately, regardless of polls, focus groups, staff advisers, and thousands of trained professionals a phone call away, the decision rests with one person alone: the president of the United States. And in the biggest decisions, the president needs the wisdom and judgment that comes from within far more than expertise and sophistication. Unlike too many nations where such power is simply inherited, or rests with some shadowy inner committee of mutually mistrustful men and women, the American president stands in the open. Every president must, at some time or other, ruefully recall that he asked for the job, and now he is stuck with it. Again from Lincoln's annual address to Congress in 1862: “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth.”
What a burden to carry. It is easy for pundits on the sidelines to shout advice or criticism, encouragement or mockery, at a president. But it's hard to truly imagine the immensity of the burden. Lincoln shouldered that burden on his journey from Springfield, Ill., to Washington in February 1861, as his train crossed the nation bearing him to the White House. The country was already divided and arming for civil war. In his second inaugural address four years later, he would recall those days, ironically pointing out that both sides appealed to God to support them, but the prayers of neither had been answered fully. And the war came. Some historians, especially of late, have been harsh with Lincoln, and some of that harshness is justified. He floundered at first, misstepped, changed directions, accepted into his Cabinet some who were utterly incompetent. But he always learned. He would admit his mistakes openly, turn around, and try again. It took the appointment and firing of half a dozen generals before he finally found the right one in Ulysses S. Grant. And when he found the right asset, he backed him to the hilt. In the midst of the 1864 campaign, facing a candidate who was calling for compromise and, if need be, to let the nation separate forever, Lincoln supported Grant's call for yet more troops, a “surge” if you will, regardless of how unpopular that was.
A modern poll most likely would have shown support for continuing the war effort at less than 25 percent by early 1864. Yet Lincoln backed Grant and saw the matter through to victory. Staying the course and shouldering a burden that might indeed be extremely unpopular is a lesson he would speak of forcefully if he were talking to us today. He learned to build coalitions of support from both sides of the aisle, yet another unpopular move at that time and again today in a world of scorched-earth partisan politics. Largely forgotten now is the fact that his 1864 presidential ticket was bipartisan. Lincoln's running mate was not only a Southerner but also a Democrat. It was a gesture to the entire nation of his plan for unity once the war was won. He sought a true, national effort and was willing to seek help from all quarters to achieve it. Throughout the war, he extended a hand of reconciliation to even his most deadly and bitter foes. He would not back away from his core principles to do this. Above all else, the Union must be preserved, and as the war progressed, slavery must end as well, but nevertheless he was always open to the prospect of joining hands with a former opponent. Recall that, when word came of his death, a badly shaken Gen. Robert E. Lee would exclaim, “The South has lost a friend.” When others sought to imprison and perhaps hang the Confederate leadership, his repeated response was “let them down easy,” and he smilingly hoped that, rather than be captured, his rival Jefferson Davis would just safely slip away. The terms of peace he suggested to Grant and Gen. William T. Sherman in the closing days of the war would at first stun a nation, filled with more than a few who sought vengeance, but this act of forgiveness and reconciliation would come to stand as the gesture that in fact restored the Union. Stench of Hypocrisy His greatest acts of courage were in regards to the question of slavery and race. Critics today point out that, by strict modern definitions, Lincoln would have been considered a racist before the war. He openly questioned the social equality of whites and blacks, but never did he question the right of blacks to keep the bread “earned by the sweat of their brows.” He declared that the words of the Founding Fathers were a pledge that all men indeed were equal in terms of political freedom and in the eyes of God, for he had endowed us all with “certain inalienable rights.”
His rousing retort when Stephen Douglas stated that the Founding Fathers never intended for “Negroes” to be included in their definition of equality was that, if such hypocrisy were accepted, he would move to Russia, where he could breath the air of tyranny free of the stench of hypocrisy. Was Abraham Lincoln a liberal on race? Most certainly for his day. Though openly doubtful at first of the ability of the two races being able to live side by side, and at first an advocate that, if need be, slavery would have to be maintained in order to preserve the Union, his opinion shifted radically across the 49 months of his tenure in office. Then, as now, some might call such a policy shift “waffling” or “flipping sides.” Others of us though would call it maturing and the growth of wisdom while in office. Lincoln was the first president to invite and socially greet a delegation of African-Americans into the White House. He would move finally to the Emancipation Proclamation, a decision that at the time was highly unpopular in the North, bitterly denounced by many as a grasping at straws and a betrayal for what the war was being fought for. (continues below)
He would break the color barrier and accept the mobilization of black troops into the Army, so many in fact that more than 20 percent of all men in uniform at war's end would belong to the United States Colored Troops, the forefathers of the famed “Buffalo Soldiers.” He would authorize the commissioning of the first African-American officers, present the first Medals of Honor to men of color, and come to attention in salute as they paraded past the White House. There is no doubt whatsoever as to what he would say after taking a stroll with one of us, hearing what we would have to say about America today and the challenges the country faces. He would remind all of us that today, we carry the same burden and the same promises he once shouldered — that the legacy of freedom and unity he struggled to preserve and, in fact, died for, is alive now in us. Our burden and promise is to carry that legacy forward and to thus preserve that last best hope of all mankind. No matter how great the problems we might now face, we are, after all, Americans, who, if united, can overcome any obstacle. He would doubtless assert that the dogmas of our quiet past might now be inadequate to our stormy present, but America is a place of eternal promise. And with perseverance, we too will find our way as long as we believe in our Constitution and rely on our unique relationship with God. We must never forget the examples set by those before us and never forget the sacrifice in blood made by those who gave the last full measure of devotion. (continues below)
And always, no matter how bitter our differences, he would suggest that we should look to the “better angels of our nature.” As to the latest president occupying what had once been “his house”? Regardless of the issues, regardless of belief in what has been promised or disagreement with those promises, regardless of policies to be set and policies broken, one could easily imagine that, upon our telling Lincoln the news of the current American president, there would be a smile. Perhaps a statement that he has a tough “row to hoe” in the years to come, and so much yet to learn. That the office can indeed make the man, as it once made him and so many others. That dogmas of the past might have to be forgotten and that the new president should learn to think anew and act anew. That we cannot escape history, but at the same time there is forever the chance to truly make history. Finally, without doubt, a smile would crease his care-worn face, and in his famed Midwestern drawl, he would say: “Let's drop in and say hello to this new fella. I'd like to wish him well and then shake his hand.” lincoln Memorial/eric meola/iconica/getty images / lincoln letters/AP IMAGES / gingrich/ethan Miller/getty images / antietam/library of congress/science faction/getty images / election poster/american school/the bridgeman art library/getty images / cabin/wife/proclamation/AP IMAGES / hearse/paul popper/popperfoto/getty images / TAD/FPG/TAXI/GETTY IMAGES / HAMLIN/lithograph by currier & IVES (Photo by MPI)/GETTY IMAGES / lincoln cepia tone/AP IMAGES / Churchill/central press/getty images / STAMPS/AP IMAGES / COINS/us MINT.gov As originally published in Newsmax magazine. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
e was a man of ordinary stock, who could have risen to the highest position a republic can bestow only in this unique place known as America. He then defended our Republic, reunited it, gave his life for it, and thus preserved it for future generations. Of all our presidents, it is Abraham Lincoln who resonates most closely in our hearts as “one of us,” someone who truly embodies “We the People.”
