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Abraham Lincoln remains a consequential figure in history. The anniversary of his birth having gone —- he was born on 12 February 1809 —- it is for those interested in the annals of great men and women inhabiting particular periods in time to go back in search of the man Lincoln was. To this day, he continues to stamp his influence on not only Americans but on everyone who around the world regards him as an integral part of definitive politics.
The generation growing into youth in the 1960s and 1970s around the globe recalls Lincoln in a kind of fervour that it does not associate with any other political figure. The reason is understandable. Lincoln was a statesman, a President who saved the United States (US) from coming apart at the seams in a period known in history as the Civil War. No one gave him a chance. No one seriously believed he could defeat the Confederate forces determined to wrest themselves out of the rest of the country on the issue of slavery.
And yet Lincoln brought the country together. There were those who even in his inner circle believed that he would not win re-election in 1864. It was suggested that he reach a deal with the South, led by Jefferson Davis, on ending a war that had already claimed thousands of American lives. Indeed, it was even suggested that his mission of freeing the slaves, through the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, would lead to voters turning him out of the White House. In the event, Lincoln’s principles survived. The Emancipation Proclamation would stand. He made it clear that a reunification of the country depended on the principle of all men and women in America being equal in the eyes of the law and morality.
Nobility resting on the near spiritual defined the Lincoln character. A firm believer in religion, he informed himself that if God had a place for him, he was ready to do what divinity ordained that he do. God was always in his thoughts. His second inaugural speech was a simple exposition of the values he attached to politics. Or take his speech at Gettysburg, one of the shortest public addresses in history. Where the speaker before him went for a seemingly unending speech, Lincoln’s was disappointingly brief. But was it disappointing? In those few words, beginning in epic literary form —- ‘Four score and seven years ago’ —- he encapsulated a brilliant vision of the future. The future was outlined in the concluding words … ‘that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.’
It was a succinct definition of democracy Lincoln underscored in that final sentence. He was acutely conscious of the sacrifices made by his soldiers on that battlefield in Gettysburg and elsewhere. The sacrifices would not have to go in vain. The sacrifices had cemented the union, he knew. But the political discourse would require firming up through an articulation of the constitutional need for national unity. The second inaugural speech is therefore a clarion call for all Americans to come together. The Confederacy was on its knees; the secessionists of the South had lost the war. Lincoln the consummate politician knew that the bitterness sown between the North and the South would have to give way to peace, to a new beginning. As he proclaimed ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right …’ the path to a future based on reconciliation was a promise he meant to keep for all Americans.
In all these reflections, however, on one of the most influential of men to occupy the White House, the question of whether there was a fatalistic streak in Lincoln comes up. Yes, he was a raconteur constantly spinning folk tales streaked with humour. His wife Mary Todd was as far removed from him in personality as one can imagine. But never for a moment did he give her the impression that he was unhappy in his marriage. The death of his son Willie disoriented him, the killing of American soldiers by American soldiers often gave rise to the feeling that he would collapse under all that weight. But he did not collapse. God was part of his being. On being elected President in 1860, he knew of the fate which awaited him. In the mirror he spotted two images of himself, the one behind his real one shaded in grey. He instinctively knew that while he would finish his first term in office, he would be unable to complete the second. And that was the way it would be. Hardly a month into his second term, he was assassinated on 15 April 1865.
The story of Abraham Lincoln is of an individual who rose from poverty to fashion politics which would resonate around the world long after sudden death put an end to his life. That politicians need not be enemies, that consensus was a surefire way of guaranteeing an attainment of political goals were principles manifested through his action of accommodating all his political rivals in his administration. The historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, in her comprehensive study of Lincoln, aptly recorded that reaching out to his rivals in her work Team Of Rivals. It is testimony to Lincoln’s greatness that those rivals became his comrades, saw the purposeful leadership he was investing the United States with and ended up respecting him in all profundity.
Abraham Lincoln emerged from a log cabin to handle the world on his own terms. A self-educated man, his penchant for reading stayed with him all his life. Had he not been assassinated, he perhaps would have come forth with his memoirs. As an orator, he was without equal, besting such powerful politicians as Stephen Douglas in their debates in the late 1850s. There was the thinker in him. Within that sadness etched across his face, he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
On 15 April 1865, the world lost Lincoln. In September 1901, when his coffin was lifted from his grave to be moved to a permanent resting place —- attempts had been made by robbers earlier to steal his corpse and demand a ransom before it could be returned —- his son Robert Todd Lincoln wished to be certain that it was his father who lay there. Except for his eyebrows, which were missing, and except for the face having become slightly dark, President Lincoln was the way he had been in life. There was a mould on his suit, the same he had worn at his second inauguration.
Abraham Lincoln’s appeal was messianic. His statesmanship was symbolised by respect for people. His politics rested on a bedrock of commitment in accompaniment with compassion. Therein is his relevance in our times, all across the world.