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Abraham
Lincoln is to the United States what Gandhiji is to
India.He was the finest specimen of a statesman the
world has seen. In 1831, when still a young man, Lincoln
took a trip down the Mississippi to New Orleans with a
steamboat captain. While in the southern metropolis he
saw a colored girl sold at auction. The scene filled his
soul with indignation and horror. Turning to his
companions he said, "Boys, if ever I get a chance to hit
that institution I'll hit it hard." Thirty one years
later the chance came; the oath was kept, and 4,000,000
slaves men, women and children were given liberty.
On
February 12 this year Americans launched a two year
bicentennial celebrations of the birth anniversary of
Abraham Lincoln, the most imposing personality in the
history of the United States. Our media, seems to have
failed to take note of the occasion.
Lincoln took office at a time when his country was
passing through a crisis. And by his response and great
acts, particularly the abolition of slavery, he helped
affirm the equality of man as contained in the
Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be
self evident that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the
Pursuit of Happiness.”
Lincoln was a student of the Bible. That book shaped his
thinking. As many young men of his time experienced,
books were rare and the Bible was often the only book
found in many households. Lincoln himself noted of the
schoolhouse he attended: 'We had no reading books or
grammars, and all our reading was done from the Bible'
(quoted by Elton True blood)
His words reflect those of Biblical prophets. For
instance after the Union's humiliating defeat at the
Battle of Bull Run, President Lincoln declared a
'National Day of Prayer and Fasting calling on the
Nation to repent and turn to God.
“It is fit and becoming in all people, at all times to
acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God; to
show in humble submission to his chastisement; to
confess and deplore their sins and transgressions …and
pray with all fervency and contrition for the pardon of
their past offences…”
In one of the darkest periods of the civil war, he
repeated his pleas with a 'Proclamation appointing a
National Fast Day' issued March 30,1863. “We have been
the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We
have been preserved these many years in peace and
prosperity. We have grown in numbers, in wealth and
power as no other nation as no other nation has ever
grown. But we have forgotten God. .
His obedience to God is also reflected in what he said
just before the Proclamation of Emancipation for freeing
slaves all over the nation. According to Treasury
Secretary Salmon P. Chase's diary, Lincoln had said:
“When the Rebel Army was at Frederick, I determined, as
soon as it should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a
Proclamation of Emancipation. ...I said nothing to
anyone, but I made a promise to myself, and (hesitating
a little) to my Maker.
And his frequent observations on the civil war are all
couched in religious terms. Here are his words on the
civil war between the two sides : “North and South,”
Lincoln said, “both read the same Bible, and pray to the
same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It
may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just
God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat
of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be
not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered;
that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty
has His own purposes.”
Lincoln believed that man is not always able to arrange
the world as he would like. The faithful see this plight
as the inevitable consequence of the Fall and, as
Lincoln noted, as the workings of the mysterious mind of
God; the secular as the vagaries of fate or chance.
Whether viewed through the lens of faith or the prism of
secularism, the point is the same: we are subject to
forces beyond our control.
Lincoln intuitively understood the drama of sin and
redemption better than most traditional believers.
Lincoln's God is neither benign nor sunny but a Lord
calling his people to account. “If we shall suppose that
American slavery is one of those offences which, in the
providence of God, must needs come,” Lincoln said, “but
which, having continued through His appointed time, He
now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and
South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by
whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any
departure from those divine attributes which the
believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?”
Lincoln also held that God demands an account from man.
He requires us to do unto others as we would have them
do unto us.
The Living God who delivered Israel from Egypt or who
raised Jesus from the dead was also the Living God who
mocked Job in his suffering and inexplicably withdrew
his favor from Saul in order to make David king.
Visiting war on America in the middle of the nineteenth
century, then, did not mark, in Lincoln's view, “any
departure from those divine attributes which the
believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him,” for
those attributes included both reward and punishment.
“Fondly do we hope fervently do we pray that this mighty
scourge of war may speedily pass away,” Lincoln said.
“Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the
wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every
drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by
another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand
years ago, so still it must be said: 'the judgments of
the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.'
This is startling and can not originate from a man who
doesn't fear God. The events of this world are linked to
the will and mind of a God who presides outside time and
space. America was being summoned to account for its
sins against the human beings it had long enslaved.
After the civil war ended and freedom granted to slaves,
he was equally magnanimous in bringing about
reconciliation between the adversaries, the North and
the South. In tributes paid to the reconciling role of
Lincoln, Mark Twain spoke as follows in 1901:
"We are here to honor the noblest and the best man after
Washington that this land, or any other land, has yet
produced. When the great conflict began the soldiers
from the North and South swung into line to the tune of
that same old melody, 'We are coming. Father Abraham,
three hundred thousand strong.' The choicest of the
young and brave went forth to fight and shed their blood
under the flag and for what they thought was right. They
endured hardships…They suffered untold hardships and
fought battles night and day.
"The old wounds are healed, and you of the North and we
of the South are brothers yet. We consider it to be an
honor to be of the soldiers who fought for the Lost
Cause, and now we consider it a high privilege to be
here tonight and assist in laying our humble homage at
the feet of Abraham Lincoln. And we do not forget that
you of the North and we of the South, one time enemies,
can now unite in singing that great hymn, 'America.
Unlike many leaders during war, Lincoln refused to
demonize the enemy. Describing the enemy as 'our
adversaries over the way' was typical of magnanimous
Lincoln. Here was a man who ended his second inaugural
speech “With malice towards none. With charity for all.”
Everyone around Lincoln knew that he meant it. Around
Lincoln those days were powerful individuals who would
hang every rebel leader by the lamp post. But he was
opposed to the spirit of revenge. Lincoln was fond of
saying that the best way to destroy the enemy was to
make a friend of him.
Before Abraham Lincoln was elected President, he
practiced law for nearly 25 years in Illinois. His
advice to fellow lawyers reveals the kind of human being
he was: 'Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors
to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how
the nominal winner is often a real loser in fees,
expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer
has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There
will still be business enough.'
On another occasion, he told a few others: ' Let no
young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment
yield to the popular belief resolve to be honest at all
events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an
honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a
lawyer.'
It was appropriate that Tolstoy commented thus on this
man who appointed many of his earlier rivals to
important positions in government after tasting victory
in battle: 'Washington was a typical American. Napoleon
was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian
as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country
bigger than all the Presidents together.'
Speaking at a ceremonial function on March 12, 2009
President Barak Obama said: 'Today, it is my privilege
to join you in dedicating this building to the memory of
President Abraham Lincoln. We know, of course, that
there are many monuments to Lincoln's memory across this
country. His words are written into stately walls, and
his image is printed on our currency. His story is
taught in our schools, and his name is synonymous with
freedom. You and I live in the union that he saved, and
we inherited the progress that he made possible.
Lincoln's new definitions of freedom and equality and
his Gettysburg speech dedicated among other things to
the struggle to ensure that "government of the people,
by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth," continues to inspire people all over. In India
with its caste system , oppressive inequalities and
cultural pluralism, Lincoln is a role model for the
political leadership.
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