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Lincoln still inspires and enrages.

Featured Topic | Posted 40 weeks 4 days ago

Was Abraham Lincoln America's greatest president? Or America's first tyrant?

One year before the bicentennial of his birth, Abraham Lincoln continues to inspire adulation and scorn. A seemingly endless stream of books assessing and reassessing Lincoln's presidency and legacy appear every year. This year is no exception.

For some, Lincoln will always be the Great Emancipator, a visionary and a statesman who fulfilled the promise of the American founding at great sacrifice. Yet for others, he was a racist who cared nothing about slavery and nearly destroyed the Constitution to preserve a union that the South wanted no part of.

How should Americans honor Lincoln today? How should we celebrate his birthday?

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Ben likes: Remembering Mr. Lincoln

Scott Johnson/Powerline

As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America's indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its "ancient faith" that all men are created equal.

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Joel likes: Stretching executive power in wartime

Jean Edward Smith/New York Times

There is an old legal maxim that in time of war the laws are silent: Inter arma silent leges. But the crucial issue is the extent to which the nation is threatened. In the case of Abraham Lincoln, the survival of the United States hung in the balance. A president will be forgiven by his contemporaries, though not necessarily by later generations, for acting outside the law when that is the case. As more than one Supreme Court justice has said, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. When national survival is not threatened, however, it is essential for a chief executive to resist an unwarranted enlargement of his powers.

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Thoughts

What do you think is your purpose in life?

Submitted on October 23rd, 2008 by Anonymous

I think my new life phase has become. Thanks God.

What do you think is your purpose in life?

Submitted on October 23rd, 2008 by Anonymous

I think my new life phase has become. Thanks God.

What do you think is your purpose in life?

Submitted on October 23rd, 2008 by Anonymous

Hello. I'm new here but I realy want to ask you...
We've all gone through this phase in life, sometimes more often than others. But haven't you ever asked yourself, "Why am I on this earth"? What am I here for? Exactly just what is your purpose in life?
P.S. Sorry If wrong section!

Team of Rivals and a Self-Taught Man

Submitted on February 13th, 2008 by Chuck_Johnson

I'm so glad you brought this up, lak.

I've often thought the smartest move that McCain could make would be to bring in all of the former GOP candidates and appoint them to various positions. He would remind them that the buck stops at his desk, but what a way to capture Lincoln's spirit.

Unfortunately McCain is a bit more like Teddy Roosevelt -- spoiling for a fight -- than the august Lincoln.

Of course the reason I like Lincoln the most was that he was one of America's last presidents to study the law without going to law school. Imagine if we could do that today!

Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln

Submitted on February 12th, 2008 by Ben

We might have included Douglass's oration in memory of Lincoln among the links above. Douglass's speech is among the greatest ever and worth reading (or re-reading) today. A snippet:

I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.

Do read the whole thing.

Team of tyrants?

Submitted on February 12th, 2008 by lak

It was interesting to hear Obama last week, when asked if he could only take one book with him to the White House which would it be, answer "Team of Rivals". This book by Doris Goodwin makes the case that Lincoln's success as a leader was the ability to build a cabinet with smart people who had dissenting points of view.

I think we focus too much on asking candidates to stake unwavering positions on their answers to key problems, and too little on what kinds of teams these folks have been able to attract and build in the past. Anyway, seems to me, a tyrant would not be interested in team-building...

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