Do you like Abraham Lincoln and why?

Question

nightdrot · Accepted Answer

Unquestionably. While other Presidents had defining accomplishments and are of undoubted historical importance, none was as decisive and significant as Lincoln, who not only saved the Union in its darkest hour, he defined its very nature.

Indeed, some years back a group of historians rated Lincoln and Churchill not just as great national leaders, but as the greatest leaders in all Western civilization. They earned the accolade - to be sure an accolade not without controversy - because they recurred to very wellsprings of Western civilization to define their statecraft and preserve their societies.

To some degree, this is an observation with a speculative cast. We can only imagine how the Western world would have looked had the United States not survived its civil war. (Ditto had Britain not stood alone and survived in 1940-41.) However, even in a contemporaneous context, Lincoln stands out.

At the time Lincoln became President, it was not just that the country was divided on the question of slavery - with all of its implications for how man viewed his fellow man. The country was, significantly, divided over its very nature. The question of whether or not it was single national community, or instead a confederation of separate and distinct communities, each with their own identity and, in extremis, sovereignty.

Lincoln answered the question not just through military victory - which by itself would not have been enduring - but by summoning the nation to the philosophical essentials of its birth. He defined the nation by common attachment to a specific creed - "a nation dedicated to a proposition" - and in the fullness of time defined the nation.

No President - not even Washington nor Jefferson - answered the question of what the United States was, and thus what it is now, as permanently and definitively. By summoning "the mystic chords of memory," i. e. to a keener sense of its animating principles, Lincoln turned the country into a nation. Something much more essential and elemental and thus enduring.

Not perfectly or completely to be sure. There is no perfection in this mortal veil of tears. However, it is undeniable that had their been no Lincoln, there would have been no America, and had there been no America, the history of Western civilization going forward - with all of its promise of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law - would have looked very different and likely would have taken a far darker turn.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Nope.

Surprised no one blew his brains across the floor years before it happened. He was an astonishing hypocrite and diabolical politician and most people who mythologies the man for his “successes” never really seem to look too closely at them.

Take his Emancipation Proclamation. It didn’t “free the slaves.” It ONLY applied to slaves in the Confederate states that seceded (yes, the Northern states had slaves too) and even then, Lincoln made an exception for Tennessee—even though they were a Confederate state.

Why?

Well his Vice-President was from Tennessee and he needed his support. 🤷‍♂️Politics. One hand washes another. 🙄

So the states that didn’t secede still get to keep their slaves... but those in the Southern secession states are now “free” and should fight the Confederates.

But not Black folk in the North. 🙄

It took a while and a LOT of convincing for the North to allow Black soldiers to serve. So... you want to “free” the Southern Blacks... but at the same time tool won’t allow Blacks to fight in the military?

Hoo-kay...🙄🤦‍♂️

I could go on, and on, about Lincoln. The man was a hypocrite and people don’t know the real man or anything about history.

Superreader · Accepted Answer

He was a very good president for the time we needed him in.

NamerOfStars · Answer

In the same sense that I "like" being whacked in the testicles with a sledgehammer. The main was a textbook dictator, and it utterly baffles me how even TODAY, he's seen as some kind of hero. Yes, it's easy to have a positive reputation AT THE TIME if you arrest journalists for being critical of you, but it's hardly a secret any more. John Wilkes Booth did us all a favor.

If you're going to claim that fighting against bad guys makes you noble, then you need to start praising Hitler, who blunted Stalin's advance into Europe and fought the Commies to the very end.

normalice · Answer

There's a historian named Heather Cox Richardson on substack who frequently writes short factoids about Lincoln's doings and philosophies. He seems alright.

handsomelad70 · Answer

I'm sorta prejudiced, but Mr. Lincoln, for all his shortcomings, including about race (and his violating the U. S Constitution while fighting the Civil War), freed the slaves, of whom my great-grandparents were two.

AviatorTom · Answer

Never met the man. I hear some think he was a pretty good President.

strateguy632 · Answer

but he was republican we can't like him! j. k.

WindAtMyBack · Answer

He was a traitor and threw the Constitution out the window. So no, I don't like him.

JayBones2469 · Answer

No because he faught on the wrong side and got assassinated before he could send the slaves home like he wanted.

RebelinSteel · Answer

Don’t care one way or the other

Dargil · Answer

Never met him.

DrPepper12 · Answer

Why? TR was the best POTUS ever!

AngryCarl · Answer

Sure, Abe and I are like that.

In_Trance · Answer

Seems like a bitch to me

jahaims · Answer

Never met him

Do you like Abraham Lincoln and why?

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Americans, do you agree with me that Lincoln is the greatest president in U. S. history?

Do you like Abraham Lincoln and why?

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Americans, do you agree with me that Lincoln is the greatest president in U. S. history?

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