He’d never get elected today! 10

Four years later after winning reelection to the Presidency for a second term Lincoln was equally soft-spoken: “Having served four years in the depths of a great, and unended national peril, I can view this call to a second term in nowise more flattering to myself, than as an expression of the public judgment that I may better finish a difficult work in which I have labored from the first, than could anyone less severely schooled to the task.”

He’d never get elected today! 9

Can you imagine any victory speech in the political world we live in of knee-jerk animosity that mirrors Lincoln’s in winning the Presidency in 1860? “In all our rejoicing let us neither express, nor cherish, any harsh feeling towards any citizen who, by his vote, has differed with us. Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling.”

895

8/27

He’d never get elected today! 8

His victory speeches are without equal. Every other politician in the world, whether he’s just been elected president or dogcatcher, reacts to his victory in exactly the same way: he gives a victory speech full of references to the historic sweep of what just took place; he will now begin the process of fulfilling all those promises and so Everything Will Be Different Now that we’ve swept the crooks out of office.

On the contrary, Lincoln sounds a far different tone. Listen to him after winning the Presidency in 1860: “I have been selected to fill an important office for a brief period, and am now, in your eyes, invested with an influence which will soon pass away; but should my administration prove to be a very wicked one, or what is more probable, a very foolish one, if you, the people are but true to yourselves and to the Constitution, there is but little harm I can do, thank God!”

He’d never get elected today! 7

In 1858 when he lost the Senatorial election to Stephen Douglas I think Lincoln was as bitterly disappointed as any candidate losing election. Yet when asked how he felt about that result, this is what he said: “I felt like the boy who stubbed his toe rather badly; I’m too big to cry and too badly hurt to laugh.”

He’d never get elected today! 6

'Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling.'

- Abraham Lincoln

He’d never get elected today! 5

Flip floppers don’t get [re]elected:

“Honest old Abe when this war first began

Denied abolition was part of his plan.

Honest old Abe has since made a decree

That the war must go on till the slaves are all free.

As both can’t be honest, will someone tell how,

If honest Abe then he is honest Abe now.”

Civil War doggerel

He’d never get elected today! 4

'I cannot understand why men should be so eager after money. Wealth is simply a superfluity of what we don't need. '

- Abraham Lincoln

He’d never get elected today! 3

‘When our own beloved country once, by the blessing of God, united, prosperous and happy is now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals, to humble ourselves before Him, and to pray for His mercy.’

- Abraham Lincoln

He’d never get elected today! 2

‘Mr. Chairman, this work is exclusively the work of politicians, a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people, and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men. I say this with the greater freedom, because, being a politician myself, none can regard it as personal.’

- Abraham Lincoln

He’d never get elected today! 1

‘These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.’

- Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln Jems 25

'No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.'

- Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln Jems 24

When one of his generals grumbled and complained after being placed in charge of a mere 3,000 men, Lincoln wired him: 'Act well your part; therein all the honor lies. He who does something at the head of one regiment will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred.' 

Lincoln Jems 23

 ‘I am slow to learn, and slow to forget. My mind is like a piece of steel - very hard to scratch anything on it, and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out.' 

- Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln Jems 22

'If any personal description of me is thought desirable I am in height, six feet four inches nearly; lean in flesh weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion with coarse black hair and gray eyes - no other marks or brands recollected.' 

- Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln Jems 21

‘It is easy to see that, under the sharp discipline of civil war, the nation is beginning a new life.' 

- Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln Jems 20

'It is much for the young to know that treading the hard path of duty will be noticed and lead to high places.' 

- Abraham Lincoln