When I was a boy, I was a Lincoln fan. Now, as a young man, I'm a Lincoln worshipper. His is the story that we dig up to remind ourselves of the potential locked away in each American. Thank goodness for The Claremont Review of Books, which just came out with its edition commemorating Lincoln.
In fifth, sixth, and eighth grade, I won first prize in the Lincoln essay. This was a town wide contest put on by the Forbes Museum and at the time I remember that this was quite the coup. It was the first time I had ever had my picture printed in the newspaper. I remember that the year I beat the state senator's child was a special treat. It was widely thought that his Dad or someone higher up had written it on his behalf. I was thrilled that I could defeat an adult at something. I remember these three event as being decisive turning points in my life. When I won in eighth grade, I had pretty much sealed my acceptance to Milton Academy, an elite prep school in my town. At the time, it seemed as if I were going places, but whether this meant to the creamy top of the town or meant an entirely different adventure, I had no way of knowing.
In any event, each prize came with a different book on Lincoln and a big glossy certificate, the first of which I would devour and the second of which I would lose. I got to shake hands with some of the town's leading citizens, some of whom offered to let me read their immense libraries when I complained that the public library had scarcely any books on Lincoln. I read everything they gave me, including Claremont McKenna professor Harry V. Jaffa's Crisis of the House Divided, though it would be entering my freshman year of college that I fully began to understand it. And while we're on the topic of college, I remember a rather hilarious line that Lincoln had when he climbed through a college window to get to a speech, "At last I've gone through college." That such a man could rise to where he did without a single college class may say more about the state of education than any fact or figure I've read or heard. For more on Lincoln and college, might I direct you here?
Here are my other two favorite quotations.
"The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume I, "Speech on the Sub-Treasury" (in the Illinois House of Representatives, December 26, 1839), p. 178."It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: 'And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!" The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Address Before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin" (September 30, 1859), pp. 481-482.
I think about both quotations whenever the times get difficult. You'll notice that neither one of them comes from the time of the Civil War. This is deliberate. I do not believe that greatness comes from events, but that it rises to meet it.
