Lincoln

The most recent edition of Humanities carries a great assessment of the many versions of Abraham Lincoln that have appeared in American culture over the years. Among the discussions of Lincoln treading a careful middle path that was partly anti-slavery and partly anti-abolitionist, and about his fervent civil faith that “the maintenance of the Union was the key to all other political goods,” Wilfred W. McClay offers insight into how external circumstances beyond an individual’s control shape a person’s place in history and how the events of the day do not always reflect the long term historical weight they carry. Overshadowed by an earlier speaker at Gettysburg, Lincoln’s address garnered little applause on the day it was given:

We need to remember that this is often how history happens. Background music does not swell at the crucial moment, and trumpets do not sound, when the events of history are actually taking place. The orator or the soldier has to wonder whether he is acting in vain, whether the criticisms of others are in fact warranted, whether time will judge him harshly. Few great men have felt this burden more completely than Lincoln.