WHATCHA' THINKIN' LINCOLN?

 

The memorial is as iconic as the man it symbolizes.  On the start of this President’s Day weekend, today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.  On Mt. Rushmore and the penny and the five-dollar bill and in the most recent ranking of US Presidents placed at number one, Lincoln’s leadership and demeanor are the one most needed today.  

As this second impeachment trial of the 45^th President draws to a close, my focus turned to the Second Inaugural address of President Abraham Lincoln. Those remarks include the oft quoted “with charity to all and malice toward none.” The nation had split apart, fought a bloody Civil War and as that conflict concluded needed to come back together, to be one nation.  

The day after the war ended while attending a celebratory ceremony Lincoln had the band play “Dixie,” the anthem of the Confederacy. 

 

The words spoken and the action by Lincoln revealed the depth of his character and his commitment to the intense labors needed to heal the nation. The greatest storyteller ever to hold the office of President of the United States knew how dearly the Southern states held the song “Dixie.”  I recall being at a bar in Charleston and the band struck up the tune Dixie.  The majority of persons stood, their eyes welled with tears and the sang vigorously.  I remain hard pressed to name any song from the Northern states that would illicit such an emotional response. 

 

Lincoln chose his “better angels” and sought to heal not to humiliate.  In that grand game of conversation “What If?” I often wonder how reconstruction would have unfolded with Lincoln at the helm. I also wonder how the needed mending and unifying in our current crisis will unfold and what is asked of each of us to “bind the nation’s wounds.”