Lacy WrightAS A native of Spring-field, Illinois, the city where Abraham Lincoln lived a quarter century before becoming President, I am a deep admirer of Lincoln and always eager to learn more about him. In recent years, I have come across some facets of our 16th President that I think are worth sharing.
First, Lincoln was an extraordinarily devoted father to his four sons. In fact, he played with his boys so boisterously, and allowed them such unusual liberties in their behaviour for that era, that he earned the disapproval of some of his Springfield neighbours. Today, Lincoln's concept of what a father should be, appears normal; then, it put him about 150 years ahead of his time.
Second, Lincoln has no living descendants today; his line has died out. Of Lincoln's sons, the only one to grow to manhood was Robert (who, despite a career that included President of the Pullman Railroad Company and Secretary of War, is said always to have lived in his father's shadow). Robert had a son and two daughters. The son died in his teens. The older daughter had no children. The younger, Jesse, who died in 1948, had two children. They died in 1975 and 1985, both childless.
Third, I have often marvelled at how a man with so little formal education, brought up in the backwoods of what would now be called a 'developing country,' became one of the greatest writers of English who ever lived. It is only this past year, in the reading of Ward Hill Lamon's Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, that I see part of the answer. (Lamon was Lincoln's law partner and accompanied Lincoln to Washington.) It is clear from the writings of that author and from the many letters he cites, that Americans of that era wrote English at a standard far, far above that of today. Thus, if Lincoln was a 10 in his written expression, the average American politician today is a three or four. Lincoln's own contemporaries, the people with whom he would have been compared, were sevens or eights.
In other words, while Lincoln as a master of the English language towers over us today, he was only perhaps a head or so above the educated men and women of his time!
Fourth, I have long known that Lincoln's magnificent Gettysburg Address was a disappointment not only to Lincoln himself but to the officials who accompanied him to the battlefield north of Washington where some 160,000 Union and Confederate soldiers had clashed that past summer. Ward Hill Lamon writes that Lincoln said to him immediately after delivering the speech, "That speech... is a flat failure, and the people are disappointed." William Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, agreed. He is cited as saying that day, "He has made a failure, and I am sorry for it. His speech is not equal to him."
What I did not know was that, according to Lamon, it was not until after Lincoln's death a year and a half later, and then only because of praise given the speech by European journals, that its greatness was first perceived in America. "It was then," says Lamon, "that we began to realise that it was indeed a masterpiece."
Finally, I knew already that Lincoln had a dry, abiding sense of humour, and that it must have buoyed him during the periods of desperate sadness that it was his fate to experience, both in his Presidency and in his personal life. I had not appreciated, however, that he was a prolific raconteur who constantly used homespun stories to illustrate his points. Lamon cites many of them in his book, adding that "during my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln I seldom heard him relate a story the second time," more evidence of the range of Lincoln's intellect and of his deftness at dealing with people.
For more on Lincoln by a man who knew him long and well, read Lamon's book. You won't be disappointed.
Lacy Wright was Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Kingston and acted as Ambassador in 1993-1994. He can be reached at Wright.international.inc@erols.com.
