With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
(Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address)
I pray that Lincoln found rest and peace in death as he seldom found it in his life.
Sure, he was a flawed human being of his time, as are we all. But, he more than anyone else is responsible for putting the USA on the path to full enfranchisement, and bringing to an end its origin as an agrarian republic of white gentlemen farmers and merchants. He gave his life for that vision of a union of states that guarantees liberty and equality through law. The world would be a very different place if he had failed to hold the Union together. There would have been no Civil Rights movement, probably no Feminist movements either. Slavery would have ended much later and harder. In fact, voting might still be limited to property owning white males over most of the North American continent. Lincoln was idolized by such very different people as Walt Whitman, Karl Marx, and my father.
ReplyDeleteFlawed human being that he was, we were blessed to have him as president.
ReplyDeleteLincoln's flaws make him all the more interesting. I grow impatient with those who don't seem able to see through the eyes of a given period in time. I know that it's more work, but it's very worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteLincoln was the right man for his time.
ReplyDeleteI grow impatient with those who don't seem able to see through the eyes of a given period in time.
Some folks don't even try.