Lincoln: great character and magnanimity
It is evident to anyone who knows American history and politics that Bush II is the worst president the nation has ever endured. It will be extremely difficult for future historians to find anything good to say about him.
Bush is a petty man, a hollow man, a stubborn, stupid man who makes the racist Andrew
Johnson look good. To mention him in the same sentence with Lincoln is sacrilegious. Lincoln was a giant, Bush a sub-Neanderthal.
A billion words have been written about Lincoln so a mere columnist cannot possibly write something original about him. A recent Google search turned up 8,370,000 Lincoln entries. But two major qualities stand out to this ardent Lincoln lover: character and magnanimity.
His character was the greatest in the history of the presidency. He had integrity, compassion, empathy, sensitivity, decency and kindness. He had a towering conscience with a powerful sense of justice. Law partner William Herndon said Lincoln’s soul was “maddened by the wrong.” Lincoln’s secretary John Hay called him the “the greatest character since Christ.”
Take a look at the Mathew Brady photograph the day Lincoln spoke at Cooper Union in New York Feb. 27, 1860, a speech that probably made him president. His face exudes character.
He was so magnanimous that many members of his cabinet were politicians who had opposed him for the presidency. He picked them because they were the most able men in the country. Supremely confident, he surrounded himself with the best.
Bush picks such terrible people for high office out of politics, ideology and loyality rather than ability. He too surrounds himself with crass mediocrities who do not challenge him.
Lincoln named Salmon Chase as chief justice of the Supreme Court despite Chase’s frequent criticism of him: “I should despise myself if I allowed personal differences to affect my judgment of his fitness for the office,” Lincoln said.
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin notes Lincoln’s “singular ability to transcend personal vendetta, humiliation or bitterness.” Edwin Stanton initially had contempt for Lincoln, calling him a “long-armed Ape.” Yet Lincoln named him secretary of war.
Lincoln also had a profound melancholy. Anyone who thinks deeply about life and the reality of the world and politics has to be melancholic. Lincoln suffered defeats, failed to get nominations and saw his vaulting ambition thwarted. Herndon remarked: “Gloom and sadness were his predominant state.”
Lincoln was born in a log cabin Feb. 12, 1809. His formal education was practically nil. Yet he was an autodidact. Everywhere he traveled he carried a book. Bush, even with an MA, mangles the language.
Biographer Emil Ludwig says of Napoleon that he was constantly studying the historic figures of antiquity “in search of his own image.” I look for my image in the life of Lincoln. He loved Shakespeare, the theater and poetry as I do.
Goodwin writes: “Reading the Bible and Shakespeare over and over implanted rhythms and poetry that made Lincoln ‘our only poet president.’ ” He was also the greatest presidential writer: “with malice toward none…charity for all”… “the mystic chords of memory”…“the better angels of our nature.”
Goodwin notes that Lincoln once spent four hours in the White House discussing Shakespeare with a leading actor. Lincoln, pulling his well-worn volume of Shakespeare from a shelf, read “aloud some passages, repeating others from memory.”
Lincoln was right on so many issues. He opposed President Polk’s illegitimate war with Mexico, a huge land grab of California, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Nevada. He said Polk had dragged the nation into a war of choice by means of false reports and rumors. Just as Bush did with Iraq.
In a message to Congress in 1861, Lincoln gave off a whiff of socialism: “Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration.”
Lincoln was no paragon. No one is. His career is dotted with embarrassments and shortcomings as most lives are. He was a cautious politician. He was no abolitionist, suffering stinging rebukes from abolitionists Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison.
Yet Douglass eventually praised Lincoln for emancipation and the use of black soldiers in the war. Indeed, he said Lincoln’s name would always be cherished by black Americans.
Lincoln knew that his rightful masters were the American people. Something Bush, “the decider,” has neither the class, character nor intelligence to learn.
When comes another like Lincoln? Probably never. Meanwhile, Stanton’s words after Lincoln died will suffice: “Now he belongs to the ages.”
Bush is a petty man, a hollow man, a stubborn, stupid man who makes the racist Andrew
Johnson look good. To mention him in the same sentence with Lincoln is sacrilegious. Lincoln was a giant, Bush a sub-Neanderthal.
A billion words have been written about Lincoln so a mere columnist cannot possibly write something original about him. A recent Google search turned up 8,370,000 Lincoln entries. But two major qualities stand out to this ardent Lincoln lover: character and magnanimity.
His character was the greatest in the history of the presidency. He had integrity, compassion, empathy, sensitivity, decency and kindness. He had a towering conscience with a powerful sense of justice. Law partner William Herndon said Lincoln’s soul was “maddened by the wrong.” Lincoln’s secretary John Hay called him the “the greatest character since Christ.”
Take a look at the Mathew Brady photograph the day Lincoln spoke at Cooper Union in New York Feb. 27, 1860, a speech that probably made him president. His face exudes character.
He was so magnanimous that many members of his cabinet were politicians who had opposed him for the presidency. He picked them because they were the most able men in the country. Supremely confident, he surrounded himself with the best.
Bush picks such terrible people for high office out of politics, ideology and loyality rather than ability. He too surrounds himself with crass mediocrities who do not challenge him.
Lincoln named Salmon Chase as chief justice of the Supreme Court despite Chase’s frequent criticism of him: “I should despise myself if I allowed personal differences to affect my judgment of his fitness for the office,” Lincoln said.
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin notes Lincoln’s “singular ability to transcend personal vendetta, humiliation or bitterness.” Edwin Stanton initially had contempt for Lincoln, calling him a “long-armed Ape.” Yet Lincoln named him secretary of war.
Lincoln also had a profound melancholy. Anyone who thinks deeply about life and the reality of the world and politics has to be melancholic. Lincoln suffered defeats, failed to get nominations and saw his vaulting ambition thwarted. Herndon remarked: “Gloom and sadness were his predominant state.”
Lincoln was born in a log cabin Feb. 12, 1809. His formal education was practically nil. Yet he was an autodidact. Everywhere he traveled he carried a book. Bush, even with an MA, mangles the language.
Biographer Emil Ludwig says of Napoleon that he was constantly studying the historic figures of antiquity “in search of his own image.” I look for my image in the life of Lincoln. He loved Shakespeare, the theater and poetry as I do.
Goodwin writes: “Reading the Bible and Shakespeare over and over implanted rhythms and poetry that made Lincoln ‘our only poet president.’ ” He was also the greatest presidential writer: “with malice toward none…charity for all”… “the mystic chords of memory”…“the better angels of our nature.”
Goodwin notes that Lincoln once spent four hours in the White House discussing Shakespeare with a leading actor. Lincoln, pulling his well-worn volume of Shakespeare from a shelf, read “aloud some passages, repeating others from memory.”
Lincoln was right on so many issues. He opposed President Polk’s illegitimate war with Mexico, a huge land grab of California, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Nevada. He said Polk had dragged the nation into a war of choice by means of false reports and rumors. Just as Bush did with Iraq.
In a message to Congress in 1861, Lincoln gave off a whiff of socialism: “Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration.”
Lincoln was no paragon. No one is. His career is dotted with embarrassments and shortcomings as most lives are. He was a cautious politician. He was no abolitionist, suffering stinging rebukes from abolitionists Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison.
Yet Douglass eventually praised Lincoln for emancipation and the use of black soldiers in the war. Indeed, he said Lincoln’s name would always be cherished by black Americans.
Lincoln knew that his rightful masters were the American people. Something Bush, “the decider,” has neither the class, character nor intelligence to learn.
When comes another like Lincoln? Probably never. Meanwhile, Stanton’s words after Lincoln died will suffice: “Now he belongs to the ages.”
posted by Jake Highton | 4:53 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks for the post. Bush is an asshole. Hearing people compare him to Lincoln is nauseating.
I truly appreciate your ability to put Lincoln's attributes into contemporary perspective. This is a well-written piece and one of those things that I stumbled on by accident, but it will stick with me for a long time. I wish our society could spend as much time praising the attributes of those magnificent leaders of the past more often, and in doing so, manifest new leaders with the same quality of character.
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