Feb. 8, 2009
Looking For Lincoln: The Man, The Symbol
Sunday Morning: An Exploration Of The Greatest President On The Bicenntennial Of His Birth
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Abraham Lincoln, as photographed by Anthony Berger at the Mathew Brady Studio in 1864. (National Portrait Gallery)
If you want to know Abraham Lincoln - the man he was, the symbol he is - go to the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg.
Cast in bronze, he stares pensively out over what would have been the terrible aftermath of three monstrous days of fighting and killing - seven thousand soldiers died here between July 1 and 3, 1863.
About a mile away, Lincoln presides over the place where the Union dead were reburied later that year.
"There were coffins stacked off to the side," remarked James McPherson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Lincoln scholar. "The smell of death was still in the air because they were still in the process of disinterring some of the soldiers.
"And on the high ground at that hillside you would have seen a large speaker stand with all kinds of dignitaries sitting up there."
Lincoln, invited to say a few words at the dedication of the cemetery, delivered the Gettysburg Address.
"Only 272 words, and the testimony is that the crowd was actually quite surprised, when, after two minutes, he sat down," McPherson said.
"Fourscore and seven years ago," it began, "our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
The Civil War, he said, was a test of whether a nation so conceived could survive.
"It's one of his two best writings, the other being the second Inaugural Address," said McPherson. "And I wouldn't necessarily want to choose between the two, but certainly the Gettysburg Address is one of the two best things he ever did - and the two best things that any American ever did."
Teichner examined one of only five existing copies of the Gettysburg Address that Lincoln wrote out by hand, an amazing enough sight by itself.
But Sunday Morning was invited by John Sellers, Lincoln curator at the Library of Congress, to see it laid out alongside the Bible Lincoln and Barack Obama both used to be sworn in as President, along with letters Lincoln wrote to his generals, and more of what the Library of Congress calls its "top treasures": The Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln's first Inaugural Address, and his famous Second.
"This is what Indiana Jones would feel like if he found the Holy Grail - this is the Holy Grail," said historian Harold Holzer, co-chairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. He showed us the very copy Lincoln is believed to have held in his hand at that sublime moment, delivering what Holzer called "arguably the greatest, most stunning inaugural address in American history."
"He actually cut and pasted all these sentences as you can see," said Sellers. Yes, little strips of paper.
With all Lincoln's telling corrections, it is included in a book of his papers and an exhibition that opens at the Library of Congress on Thursday, one of many commemorations of his 200th birthday around the country.
The Abraham Lincoln that emerges was a man who grew profoundly during his presidency. Between his election in November 1860 and his inauguration in March 1861, seven Southern states seceded from the Union. He'd been in office a month when Confederate troops fired on Ft. Sumter, beginning the Civil War.
"Lincoln had no experience to be commander in chief, he had no military experience to speak of at all," said McPherson.
And yet, writes McPherson in his latest book, "Tried by War," Lincoln really created the job as we understand it today.
"Congress did not declare war in the case of the Civil War," he said. "And that gave the president enormous powers and responsibilities to put down this insurrection and to guarantee the continued existence of the United States."
He took power because he believed he had to, in part because his top generals resisted taking on the Confederates, especially general-in-chief George B. McClellan.
His favorite excuse: that he was outnumbered (even when the opposite was true). Lincoln replaced McClellan and a succession of other generals, before appointing Ulysses S. Grant.
It was only as commander-in-chief that President Lincoln was able to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in rebel-held Southern states, on January 1, 1863.
"The stated rationale and justification and legal basis for the proclamation was military, the right of the commander in chief to seize enemy property," McPherson said.
Lincoln gave blacks the right to join the Union Army and Navy. Two hundred thousand did, most of them freed slaves. It was to weaken the enemy, Lincoln argued, but like everything else concerning slavery, his motives were complicated.
In a PBS documentary, "Looking for Lincoln," and a new book, Henry Louis Gates, Jr, a longtime Harvard professor, comes to terms with a three-dimensional Abraham Lincoln.
"He was flawed," Gates said. "He was a human being just like we were. He was a recovering racist."
He told darkie jokes and used the "n" word. He wanted slavery ended but actually proposed shipping the freed slaves back to Africa. He was ambivalent about equal rights for blacks.
"He did change; the fact of the matter is that Lincoln did change," Gates said.
"Would it be correct to say that it's how he evolved in his position toward black people that you admire most?" Teichner asked.
"Oh, that he evolved at all, that he was willing to confront himself and overcome his prejudices and do the right thing." Gates said.
Abraham Lincoln arrived in Richmond, Va., on April 4, 1865. The Confederate capital had fallen. The war was all but over.
When Lincoln stepped off onto the wharf, the now freed slaves saw him. They recognized him, and they ran to him saying. 'There's father Abraham.'"
David Ward, curator of an exhibition of Lincoln images at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, remarked about how Lincoln was the first president who was frequently photographed. He showed images of the president just before the Gettysburg Address (November 8, 1863), and just over a year later.
There are also life masks. One, originally cast in 1860, and the other, two months before he died in 1865, say it all.
"He's internalizing all the deaths on the Battlefield," Ward said. "He's suffering along with the Union."
Who hasn't heard the story about the Lincolns at Ford's Theatre on April 14?
"The orchestra started playing 'Hail to the Chief,'" said Paul Tetrault, director of Ford's Theatre. "The entire audience stood in unison, applauding. Of course, it was only nine days after Appomatox and the end of the Civil War, so people were elated."
Not John Wilkes Booth. He'd heard the president announce he would give the vote to his black warriors, the 200,000 who had fought for the Union, and Booth vowed to shoot Lincoln.
"It was a little pop, and then the screams could be heard from the box," Tetrault said. "Mary Todd Lincoln was saying, 'They've shot my husband!'" John Wilkes Booth jumped from the box to the stage, about 12 feet. "And of course, he raised his knife to the audience and declared 'Sic semper tyrannus!' 'Thus always to tyrants.'"
Tonight, Ford's Theatre re-opens after an extensive renovation with "The Heavens Are Hung in Black." A new play commissioned to mark Lincoln's bicentennial, it revisits his struggle over slavery.
"Lincoln is a man for all seasons in a way that's unique in American History," said Gates.
"Why do we need him?" Teichner asked.
"Well, we need him, I think to paraphrase Lincoln, to evoke the better angels of our nature."
To know what that means, go to the battlefield at Gettysburg where on that November day in 1863 Lincoln explained in these words: "That this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
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Add a Comment See all 37 Comments
- You know Americans are already so frustrated with BUSH failure polices and now we have these new Jokers known as Bobby Jindal (the governor of poorest begging state) & Rush Limbaugh (radio show host, a felon of drug user). Enough with this Jindal hypocrite, Where was he when his buddies BUSH, Dick and Rumsy were planning wars? Looting money from hard working Americans and lying for all the WMD crap.
Mc Cain another joker, voted for first stimulus $ 700 Billion and now he is calling it generational theft. Has BUSH and republican not done enough damage to America? And now Obama is following same policies and keeping the same losers in his administration, what a joke!!
These jokers (specially so called conservative republican) have fun time in congress and Senate, have not done anything good and now dragging this great country into HELL !!
We the honest hard working Americans need real answer, no more these Jokers ripping us off. If they have some shame and honest values, they need to resign or not run again. Shame on you!
Nobody has ever won Afghanistan (read history) and will never be able to win. But we will end up pump in more $$ Billions and will have more soldiers dead or broken legs and arms.
Mark my words, that weather we will have a revolution in this country or we will definitely see Third World WAR very soon.
Answer me, because I have a right, and I am honest TAX Payer, whose money you guys are giving to your buddies in CITI Bank, AIG and others.
GOD save us from these hypocrite jokers, GOD Bless America - Reply to this comment
- I want to challenge you to involve yourself in the true history of Lincoln''s War. This morning I was reading some pages from Company Aytch or A Side Show of the Big Show, a Classic Memoir of the Civil War by Sam Watkins, told form the view point of an ordinary foot soldier. Originally published Nashville, TN 1882.
I read on page 182, THEN COMES THE FARCE, an interesting point that I hadn''t thought much about.
The time period is Sherman''s March through Georgia and the taking of Atlanta. Sherman started at the Tennessee border of Georgia, there he begins with thousands of soldiers, guns, wagons, a huge unstoppable war machine. Watkins describes his army -
"But on this day of which I now write, we can see in plain view more than a thousand Yankee battle-flags waving on top the red earthworks, not more than four hundred yards off. Every private soldier there knew that General Hood''s army was scattered all the way from Jonesboro to Atlanta, a distance of twenty-five miles, without any order, discipline, or spirit to do anything.
And here was but a demoralized remnant of Cheatham''s corps facing the whole Yankee army. I have ever thought that Sherman was a poor General, not to have captured Hood and his whole army at that time. But it matters not what I thought, as I am not trying to tell the ifs and ands, but only of what I saw. In a word, we had everything against us. - Reply to this comment
- So you think history is "about to repeat itself"? By that, do you mean the southern re.tards are going to try to succeed from the union again? You are speaking about TREASON, and should you attempt it, it won''''t be tolerated this time around, either! Posted by IDNNSG ---
So far 8 states have drafted legislation asserting their sovereignty under the 10th amendment to the constitution. %u201CThe Tenth Amendment restates the Constitution''s principle of Federalism by providing that powers not granted to the National government nor prohibited to the states are reserved to the states and to the people.%u201D Once again it''s States rights vs. Federal rights. History repeating itself... - Reply to this comment
- I want to challenge you to involve yourself in the true history of Lincoln''s War. This morning I was reading some pages from Company Aytch or A Side Show of the Big Show, a Classic Memoir of the Civil War by Sam Watkins, told form the view point of an ordinary foot soldier. Originally published Nashville, TN 1882.
I read on page 182, THEN COMES THE FARCE, an interesting point that I hadn''t thought much about.
The time period is Sherman''s March through Georgia and the taking of Atlanta. Sherman started at the Tennessee border of Georgia, there he begins with thousands of soldiers, guns, wagons, a huge unstoppable war machine. Watkins describes his army -
"But on this day of which I now write, we can see in plain view more than a thousand Yankee battle-flags waving on top the red earthworks, not more than four hundred yards off. Every private soldier there knew that General Hood''s army was scattered all the way from Jonesboro to Atlanta, a distance of twenty-five miles, without any order, discipline, or spirit to do anything.
And here was but a demoralized remnant of Cheatham''s corps facing the whole Yankee army. - Reply to this comment
- I want to challenge you to involve yourself in the true history of Lincoln''s War. This morning I was reading some pages from Company Aytch or A Side Show of the Big Show, a Classic Memoir of the Civil War by Sam Watkins, told form the view point of an ordinary foot soldier. Originally published Nashville, TN 1882.
I read on page 182, THEN COMES THE FARCE, an interesting point that I hadn''t thought much about.
The time period is Sherman''s March through Georgia and the taking of Atlanta. Sherman started at the Tennessee border of Georgia, there he begins with thousands of soldiers, guns, wagons, a huge unstoppable war machine. Watkins describes his army -
"But on this day of which I now write, we can see in plain view more than a thousand Yankee battle-flags waving on top the red earthworks, not more than four hundred yards off. Every private soldier there knew that General Hood''s army was scattered all the way from Jonesboro to Atlanta, a distance of twenty-five miles, without any order, discipline, or spirit to do anything.
And here was but a demoralized remnant of Cheatham''s corps facing the whole Yankee army. I have ever thought that Sherman was a poor General, not to have captured Hood and his whole army at that time. But it matters not what I thought, as I am not trying to tell the ifs and ands, but only of what I saw. In a word, we had everything against us. - Reply to this comment
- I want to challenge you to involve yourself in the true history of Lincoln''s War. This morning I was reading some pages from Company Aytch or A Side Show of the Big Show, a Classic Memoir of the Civil War by Sam Watkins, told form the view point of an ordinary foot soldier. Originally published Nashville, TN 1882.
I read on page 182, THEN COMES THE FARCE, an interesting point that I hadn''t thought much about.
The time period is Sherman''s March through Georgia and the taking of Atlanta. Sherman started at the Tennessee border of Georgia, there he begins with thousands of soldiers, guns, wagons, a huge unstoppable war machine. Watkins describes his army -
"But on this day of which I now write, we can see in plain view more than a thousand Yankee battle-flags waving on top the red earthworks, not more than four hundred yards off. Every private soldier there knew that General Hood''s army was scattered all the way from Jonesboro to Atlanta, a distance of twenty-five miles, without any order, discipline, or spirit to do anything.
And here was but a demoralized remnant of Cheatham''s corps facing the whole Yankee army. I have ever thought that Sherman was a poor General, not to have captured Hood and his whole army at that time. But it matters not what I thought, as I am not trying to tell the ifs and ands, but only of what I saw. In a word, we had everything against us. - Reply to this comment
- I want to challenge you to involve yourself in the true history of Lincoln''s War. This morning I was reading some pages from Company Aytch or A Side Show of the Big Show, a Classic Memoir of the Civil War by Sam Watkins, told form the view point of an ordinary foot soldier. Originally published Nashville, TN 1882.
I read on page 182, THEN COMES THE FARCE, an interesting point that I hadn''t thought much about.
The time period is Sherman''s March through Georgia and the taking of Atlanta. Sherman started at the Tennessee border of Georgia, there he begins with thousands of soldiers, guns, wagons, a huge unstoppable war machine. Watkins describes his army - - Reply to this comment
- Posted by jlbjlbjlb at 04:52 PM : Feb 08, 2009..............As the number of ruined Americans grows...so does the need for the people to stand up and stop this treasonous act congress is committing.
Posted by tincup356 at 08:42 PM : Feb 08, 2009
I sure wish more people would have thought like you seven years ago!! - Reply to this comment
- from The Declaration of Independence:
..."That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Posted by jlbjlbjlb at 04:52 PM : Feb 08, 2009..............As the number of ruined Americans grows...so does the need for the people to stand up and stop this treasonous act congress is committing. - Reply to this comment
- TREASON was committed in 1776.
Thank God. - Reply to this comment
- "Do you think the south just decided to declare war because they had nothing better to do? States rights vs. federal rights. You need to research your history because it''s about to repeat itself." -- Serf_1
I am fully aware of the history and do not "need to research" it any more. I took multiple history classes in college, including early American history, which included the civil war years, and was taught by southerner who went to great pains to give the southern point of view.
So you think history is "about to repeat itself"? By that, do you mean the southern re.tards are going to try to succeed from the union again? You are speaking about TREASON, and should you attempt it, it won''t be tolerated this time around, either! - Reply to this comment
- "He was flawed," Gates said. "He was a human being just like we were. He was a recovering racist."
"Fourscore and seven years ago," it began, "our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
... psssst someone forgot to tell that to the KKK, White Aryans, White Nation et al., et cet., that seem to think WHITEs rule planet earth what with their blonde hair and blue eyes ... and now we the working class are bailing out the wealthiest of Americans who are WHITEs what a flipping joke... - Reply to this comment
...history is written by the victorious.
...The SOUTH is gonna rise again!
Posted by piercetheval at 02:55 PM
Yeah, well, I was just thinking, if the
South rises, that would put it in North.
Two Norths, no South, interesting.- Reply to this comment
- from The Declaration of Independence:
..."That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." - Reply to this comment
- http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1543
- Reply to this comment
- States do not now, nor ever had the right to secede. The USA can only expand, it cannot contract. There is no getting out. If we go down we all go down together- that''s the pact we made when signing on. You have a constitution and you have representation; use them.
- Reply to this comment
- States do not now, nor ever had the right to secede. The USA can only expand, it cannot contract. There is no getting out. If we go down we all go down together- that''s the pact we made when signing on. You have a constitution and you have representation; use them.
- Reply to this comment
- ...history is written by the victorious.
...The SOUTH is gonna rise again! - Reply to this comment
- Posted by diogenes99 at 02:28 PM : Feb 08, 2009
Really hate the guy, don''t you? At least he amounted to something, have you? - Reply to this comment
- Abraham Lincoln was the biggest liar, coward, and mass murderer in American history. He called for troops to murder citizens who exercised their constitutional right of disunion. Note that the famous "Emacipation Proclamation" did NOT free slaves in Northern territory, which shows that (A)He did not consider slavery, as an institution, wrong, and that (B)the Union refused to accept responsibility for the freed slaves, as if they had really been considered contraband of war, it would have required the Union to support the freed slaves as citizens of the state. A more murderous, lying cowardly son-of-a-*** never walked the face of this planet. And his corruption has led directly to the mob rule about to destroy this nation, in the name of "democracy."
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