Let your eye sweep across a photograph of Mount Rushmore, or still better the real thing, and you will see four men who bid fair to be America’s greatest President.
There is George Washington, who won the war of independence and handed over control of the army to civilian authority; who chaired the Constitutional Convention, wordlessly, in that sultry Philadelphia summer of 1787; and who gave up the Presidency in 1796 and headed back to his farm rather than become a monarch.
Then Thomas Jefferson, drafter of the Declaration of Independence and purchaser of the Louisiana Territory, which doubled the size of the US and opened up the frontier. And Teddy Roosevelt, who led the Rough Riders’ charge up San Juan Hill, built the navy, busted monopolies and founded America’s national parks.
Yet Washington is an icon, not a man; Jefferson was a devious hypocrite who betrayed his President and best friend John Adams, and proclaimed universal equality but never freed his own slaves; and Roosevelt, for all his peacetime genius, never faced the supreme test of leadership in war. No, for me it has to be the last of the four, Abraham Lincoln.
Unlike the others, Lincoln grew up in adversity. He was born in a one-room log cabin, lost his mother at the age of nine, had the barest minimum of formal education, failed as a small businessman, and taught himself the law by ploughing carefully through Blackstone’s Commentaries. He was tall and skinny, and not pretty: accused once of being two-faced, he said if that was so, why would he have chosen the face he had? He had served just one term, two years, as a Congressman before he ran for the Presidency on the back of his national reputation as an opponent of slavery.
Why Lincoln? Because he was a political genius, who gained the Presidency by charm and stealth, reaching out across factions to win the delegates he needed. Because he famously built and managed a “team of rivals” from among the most brilliant politicians of the day. Because of his amazing wit and humour, and the modesty and self-control which hid his despair at personal setbacks including the premature death of two of his children. Because he won a civil war, the worst of all conflicts, despite blundering and pusillanimous generals, incompetent officials and a democratic cacophony of conflicting advice and naysaying. Because, conquering external opposition and his own doubts, he freed the slaves. Because he renewed a moral vision for America as one nation founded on freedom not on bloodlines, and on choice and self-determination not on ancient prerogative. Because of the magnanimity of his plans for Reconstruction. Because, from his “House Divided” speech to the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural, he spoke for America in language that remains unforgettable to this day. And finally, because he died in office, serving his country.
So it can only be Lincoln.
[A version of this article originally appeared in the November/December 2012 issue of Intelligent Life]