‘Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.’ - Jonas Salk

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

April 8

In January 1862 Lincoln appointed Edwin Stanton Secretary of War. Everyone, including Stanton, was astonished at his appointment. After all, Stanton had repeatedly vilified this “imbecilic” President, this “original gorilla” [Darwin’s 'Origin of Species' had just been published in 1859]. Lincoln knew all this, of course, but had put that aside. He never carried a grudge, he said later, because it didn't pay. Stanton was a Union man through and through, he was a prodigious worker and he was a wizard as an administrator - and those skills impelled Lincoln to promote him. With time it was clear the appointment was a stroke of genius.