Happy Birthday!

Today is the 213th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. It is worth commemorating. Most surveys/rankings of US Presidents place Lincoln at the top, the best. I've seen a few, very few, that don't. But I would say that most thoughtful/knowledgeable people who know about the American past rate Lincoln as our greatest President. Although he did much more as President, the two things that obviously stand out are freeing the slaves and winning the Civil War. Through the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment (passed after his death) slavery was abolished. Despite the mistaken notion that the Emancipation Proclamation didn't free any slaves, it did free slaves, many of them, perhaps as many as 100,000 or so. Of course, as some historians, textbooks, and history teachers claim, the Emancipation was a military measure designed to help win/end the Civil War. That it was mere bluster, only freeing slaves where they couldn't be practically freed, is wrong. There was a reason the newly emancipated blacks referred to Lincoln in Biblical terms, "Father Abraham." And that reason was he had freed many of them. In addition, the Emancipation got the ball rolling, no mean feat. Constitutionally and, I suppose, legally slavery was ended by the 13th Amendment. Eric Foner's brilliant book, The Fiery Trial, and the hit movie Lincoln detail the story behind Lincoln's efforts to enact the 13th Amendment. (By the way, the wording of the Amendment, "neither slavery or involuntary servitude...shall ever exist in the United States....." comes from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, enacted before the Constitution was written. The author of the 13th Amendment was Jacob Howard, a US Senator from Michigan.) It was finally ratified by the requisite number of states in December 1865. Slavery was abolished. Of course, neither the Emancipation nor the 13th Amendment would have mattered much had the South won the Civil War. And it came far closer to winning it than, I think, most people realize. But it was Lincoln who won it. I've studied the period pretty closely over the years and have found nobody, at least not to my understanding, else who could have done what Lincoln did, that is, win! Lincoln possessed a unique combination of admirable character traits: courage, honesty, humility, intelligence, knowledge, patience, and more. He understood human nature and politics, recognizing that people would not hear messages for which they weren't ready to hear. (Who had the greatest message in the history of the world? "Love thy neighbor as thyself." It was Jesus. And what did they do to him for trying to spread it? They killed him.) Lincoln was thoughtful, rarely acting impetuously or rashly. Recognizing, too, that others might have better ideas than his, listening was important to him. And he wasn't above changing his mind and using those better ideas. I've noted these two anecdotes before, but they are worth repeating on this day. They are not only revealing, but still excite me afer reading and relating them hundreds of times. Frederick Douglass was the leading black abolitionist. He and Lincoln, after a tenuous beginning, developed a friendship. After Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address, he returned to the White House to accept well-wishers. The receiving line was quite long. Douglass was in the crowd at the Capitol Building listening to the Address. He was so moved he decided he had to tell Lincoln what he thought of it. So he went to the White House and stood in the lengthy line. But when he finally arrived inside, he was unceremoniously ushered out, despite his claims of friendship with the President. After all, he was a black man. But Douglass was determined, eventually forcing his way into the reception room. His brusque entrance attracted more than a little notice, including that of Lincoln. Before Douglass could be ushered out, Lincoln saw him and cried out, "Here comes my friend Douglass." Just imagine that, in 1865 a white President of the US calling a black man "my friend!" But there's more. Calling Douglass to him, he said, loud enough for others to hear, "I saw you in the crowd today, listening to my address. How did you like it?" Whoa! Again consider this, in 1865, a white President asking a black man for his opinion! Douglass was embarrassed by the attention and the looks from the impatient crowd and begged off, "Mr. Lincoln, I must not detain you with my poor opinion....." Lincoln replied, "No, no. There is no man in the country whose opinion I value more than yours. I want to know what you think of it." "Mr. Lincoln, that was a sacred effort!" (Note the Biblical reference again.) The President smiled. "I'm glad you liked it. I value your opinion." Again, imagine that exchange..... W. E. B. DuBois, some decades later, was one of the founders of the NAACP. In a 1922 essay, he responded to critics who thought he had criticized or disparaged "Father Abraham." As Lincoln had told Douglass 57 years before, DuBois might have said, "No, no." Among other things he wrote this. "Abraham Lincoln was perhaps the greatest figure of the nineteenth century. Certainly of the five masters, Napoleon, Bismarck, Victoria, Browning and Lincoln, Lincoln is to me the most human and lovable. And I love him not because he was perfect but because he was not and yet triumphed. The world is full of illegitimate children. The world is full of folk whose taste was educated in the gutter. The world is full of people born hating and despising their fellows. To these I love to say: See this man. He was one of you and yet he became Abraham Lincoln." Read that again, especially, "...and yet he became Abraham Lincoln." I still get chills every time I read it. Happy Birthday, Abraham. (He didn't like being called "Abe.")