It used to rank with Washington's Birthday. Now they are both subsumed in some odd amalgam called "President's Day" that doesn't seem to mean much at all. Meanwhile, that preposterous concoction "Darwin Day" is probably getting more attention today than Honest Abe's celebration.
That's too bad. In the pantheon of greatness, Aristotle tells us, the greatest honors go to the "magnanimous man" who creates a state, the next highest to the one who preserves it. That would give us 1) Washington and 2) Lincoln.
Washington leaves us awestruck. His passions were real, but he controlled them so well that the force of his personality was concentrated almost exclusively on advancing his country's mission. His stamina and virtue were undimmed by time or usage. We owe him, among other things, that in over two centuries we have not been tempted to dictatorship. When, after the Revolutionary War, he was offered a kingship he turned it down. His reason for the decision was that such a role was beneath him, an insult to his character as a free man in a free country! What could be a more perfect response? Those who had offered him the crown, as it were, fell down in abject shame and apology.
Lincoln can't help but seem more human. He woos us with his deep love of country, justice and, yes, peace. His humor delights. His political warning should be heeded just now by politicians who hope to enrapture the public: "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
A wonderful article on Lincoln's religious life appears in World Magazine, written by Marvin Olasky. I didn't realize before that Lincoln was a skeptic as a youth and only came to faith in the crisis of the war itself. It literally drove him to his knees, he said. People today feel so sorry for themselves because of the anxieties of our time, but Lincoln, like Washington, knew real peril. We should bow to give thanks for such leaders and ask our children to join us in paying respects.
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