Lincoln's Life Lesson on Saving Democracy
In a small town on the prairie, there are no secrets. Everyone knows you, and you know everyone.
The town saw a beloved, brilliant young man with no schooling study law, memorize a Shakespeare play and do so well he lived in a handsome house on Eighth and Jackson. Everyone enjoyed seeing him wrestling and playing outdoors with his sons.
"Here my children have been born, and one is buried," Lincoln continued, opening up like a book. The Lincolns' son Eddie died at age 3.
Lincoln's spare, haunting words are always straight to the point, never flowery. Thomas Jefferson, elegant and formal in writing, seldom showed such a direct personal voice.
Lincoln used Jefferson's "all men are created equal" to build his vision. But he had no illusions about the Virginia gentleman genius enslaver.
Lincoln was the first president to speak and write prose that really resonates with us. It's not too much to say he invented modern American English. His words are democratic, small "d," for all.
With a piercing bell-like drawl from "the West," Lincoln made himself heard before crowds. The aristocratic Jefferson mumbled softly in public, even as president.
Now the saddest part. Lincoln felt the final setting of the scene:
"I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington."
And then the war came. Lincoln didn't start fights -- but he never lost one.
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