Lincoln's Life Lesson on Saving Democracy
It's little noted how much the 16th president changed in office over four years. The Civil War toll had to mean more than keeping Southern states in the Union, Lincoln resolved in the American revolution he sparked.
The war over slavery had to bring "a new birth of freedom," as he put it in Gettysburg.
When Lincoln won the war and freed millions of enslaved people, he defended and enlarged democracy.
On a cruel April Friday in 1865, Lincoln was murdered in a conspiracy. The blessing is that the Civil War had just ended. Boston, New York and Philadelphia were jubilant.
Lincoln enjoyed the victory celebration in Washington. The capital city was illuminated one grand evening. Black and white people rejoiced in the streets.
Soon after, they kept an all-night vigil when the president was shot, the last casualty of the Civil War.
Lincoln did go home again -- on a funeral train.
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