Honest Abe

Abraham Lincoln was one of the great demonstrators of the term “the American Dream”.  Being born to illiterate farmers who lived, at the time, in a one-room log cabin, Honest Abe, as he was known, rose to be one of America’s greats, ending slavery and, against all odds,  keeping the country united.

It seems to us that Abraham Lincoln was a “gentle giant”.  A very tall man of great strength, Lincoln enjoyed reading – so much so that neighbors thought he read to avoid doing manual labor.  He was actually very skilled with an axe and was a good wrestler.  No, not a lazy bone in him!

Abraham Lincoln had very little formal education and taught himself law.   In 1837, he was admitted to the Illinois Bar.

As the 16th President of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln was first a man of integrity (thus the nickname “Honest Abe”), a man of conviction, a man of great depth, a man with a heart for doing the right thing.  He is famous for asking the question, “Why are we here?”.  We cannot help but think that he believed that we are here, each and every one of us, to do good, just by the way he conducted himself.

In Stephen Speilberg’s latest film, “Lincoln”, Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays President Lincoln, brings out Lincoln’s penchant for using a story or an anecdotal experience to bring a point home or to diffuse passions of the moment.  By the way, Daniel Day-Lewis has been nominated for a “Best Actor” Oscar, which, if he wins, will be his third Oscar win.  Having seen the movie, we concur that the nomination is well-deserved as Mr. Day-Lewis appears to embody not only the physical stature of Lincoln, but his character as well.

President Lincoln was actually a minority president in the sense that, in the four-way race for the 1860 election, he won only a plurality of the votes rather than an absolute majority.  Even as he headed to Washington to assume the duties of the Presidency in early 1861, he was derided by many critics not only for his gangly stature and homely appearance but also for the fact that he was a “rail splitter” from the west who lacked the necessary political acumen.   These critics, obviously, underestimated Lincoln’s character, intelligence and political shrewdness as well as his compassionate heart.  Over the course of his Presidency, Abraham Lincoln grew, in the eyes of his countrymen, from a country bumpkin to a man for the ages.

So, today, we celebrate you, President Abraham Lincoln.  We celebrate all of the wonderful qualities you shared with this country.

Of historical note, the country used to celebrate President Lincoln’s birthday on his actual birthday, today, February 12.  However, in recent times, it has been subsumed in the Presidents’ Day holiday which is usually on a Monday in order to give the populace a three-day weekend.