A blog about Abraham Lincoln and the Political Memory of Lincoln written by a PhD candidate doing research about Lincoln for a dissertation. Updated monthly.
How does one begin writing about Lincoln? Maybe a topic comes up involving Lincoln or a preconceived notion about him gets indulged through writing. Perhaps the author stumbles into the project by accident. Some people are asked specifically to write about Lincoln for some particular purpose. Ultimately all of these reasons and more could start one along in the process of writing about Lincoln. I started writing this blog due to a request, or rather a demand, from a friend. Since I was going to be expected to update the blog I decided I might as well try to further my dissertation research with topics for the blog on the general theme of my project: Lincoln and memory. It is with this sense of commemoration in mind that I am interested in what other people write about Lincoln.
Everyone who writes about Lincoln is engaging in a project of collective memory. Obviously no one is left alive now who knew Lincoln or knew somebody who knew Lincoln for that matter. Therefore, other memories have to be relied upon to say something about Lincoln today. Lincoln was a very personal man who did not keep a diary and gave us minimal insight into his life through his letters. In other words, relying solely on the Lincoln writings in the Collected Works and using no biographical works about Lincoln would make it extremely difficult to piece together the world in which Lincoln lived at any point in his life. Whenever we utilize these secondary sources the problem of unreliable information appears. There are a great many spurious Lincoln quotes floating around to say the least.
Even when dealing with reputable characters, there is the issue of only getting one side of the story or having words put into Lincoln’s mouth. For instance, in Frederick Douglass’ third autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), he describes a meeting with Lincoln at the White House after Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address has been delivered. Douglass reports Lincoln as saying “Douglass; there is no man in the country whose opinion I value more than yours. I want to know what you think of it?” Douglass responded, “Mr. Lincoln, that was a sacred effort.” A jovial Lincoln replies “I’m glad you liked it!” If one peruses the Lincoln Log entry for March 4, 1865, Douglass is not mentioned unless we consider him included in the number of the 6,000 persons Lincoln shook hands with. This particular encounter would not have been the first time these two men, these two friends, had met at the White House. We know how Lincoln felt about the speech. He wrote to Thurlow Weed on March 15, 1865 that he expected the speech “will wear as well as --- perhaps better than --- any thing I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular.” There is no mention by Lincoln of Douglass’ “sacred effort” remark in gauging the perception of the speech. The context of the symbolic use of the Lincoln meeting in the East Room in Douglass’ autobiography (African Americans had previously not been allowed to view the Inaugural Address much less visit a President at the post-Inaugural ball and discuss the speech) is more important than Lincoln’s flippant reply, “I’m glad you liked it!”
Lincoln’s death was 144 years ago yet people still write about the “real” Lincoln—a Google search of “the real Lincoln” I did recently returned over 26 million results. If all of this time has passed and the genuine Lincoln has not been discovered, why should we believe that a new book or article will uncover the actual Lincoln which has been ostensibly out of our grasp? Putting the “real” or the “true” Lincoln in the title of one’s writing about Lincoln is audacious at best, foolhardy at worst. Authors making use of such titles are usually out to “set the facts straight” or separate “the myths from reality” or any number of other such stock phrases. Someone writing in this mood such as Thomas DiLorenzo typically has something out for Lincoln, those who write about Lincoln, or both. His second book about Lincoln, Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe, even begins with a section entitled “Challenging the Gatekeepers.” Such gatekeepers, DiLorenzo claims, are “the Lincoln cult” who, whether they are on the political left (a dubious idea in itself that the United States has one of these) or right, “use the Lincoln mythology to advocate a bigger, more centralized, and more interventionist central government for one reason or another.” Seeking a reevaluation of Lincoln’s legacy as DiLorenzo seems to want is fine in itself, but name calling is no way to begin an honest debate. We are also able to see that the “real” Lincoln to be discussed is only a Lincoln which fits in with the author’s predetermined standpoint—which is a terrible way to write no matter what one’s interests are. Any notions about discovering the “real” Lincoln at this stage of American history should be put to rest. If no one has done it by now, it’s not going to happen.
There is a Lincoln (or I should say Lincolns) that most people do not know, but this is not the “real” Lincoln either, but simply more of Lincoln than is typically written about. From what I can gather, Lincoln historians are well aware of how Lincoln handled the Sioux uprising in Minnesota in 1862—Lincoln signed the execution order of 38 Santee Sioux men (the largest mass execution by the US government in its history), pardoned 265 other Santee men, and allowed the removal of the Sioux and the Winnebago (the latter were not involved with the uprising) from Minnesota. Lincoln historians are reluctant to discuss this Lincoln in their writings. There remains only one book on Lincoln and his Indian policy, David A. Nichols’ Lincoln and the Indians. Lincoln’s service in the Black Hawk War (1832), which involved no actual fighting, or the fact that Lincoln’s grandfather was killed by Indians is hard to leave out of Lincoln biographies and is easy to track down. The Lincoln who advocated colonization for African Americans has been well documented by historians, along with the crucial fact that he changed his mind about this policy. Although Lincoln as a lawyer came down on the side of black freedom in a case of an attempt to sell a black woman in Bailey v. Cromwell, an unfamiliar Lincoln is the lawyer who six years later defended a slave owner in the Matson case. Nevertheless, this too is a Lincoln that the general public would struggle to reconcile with the popular image of “The Great Emancipator.” One of the difficulties of writing anything trying to approach a comprehensive Lincoln is that the Lincoln who emerges is a thoroughly complex man who is unable to be confined in the simplistic portrayals most people have been subjected to. Another hurdle to writing about Lincoln is a deadline. I’ll try hard not to come up against it next month.
If we leave out the fraudulent Lincoln we are left with an incomplete image of the memory of Lincoln. It matters far less that Lincoln never said “you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all the people all the time,” than it matters that people believe that he did (this quote is also attributed to P.T. Barnum on occasion). Likewise, the public wants to believe that Lincoln loved Ann Rutledge and wants to know the details. Carl Sandburg, who believed that Lincoln uttered the quote about fooling people, also played a prominent role in promoting the fictional aspects of the relationship in his huge seller, The Prairie Years (1926).
Sometimes the forging of the Lincoln memory involves actual forgery. Sandburg was unfortunately involved with the Wilma Minor affair which resulted in a big embarrassment for Atlantic Monthly. Sandburg initially believed that Wilma Minor had turned up lost Lincoln love letters to and from Rutledge because Sandburg wanted to believe in love and refused to use a critical eye toward the letters. It was only after the Lincoln scholar Paul Angle exposed Minor’s Lincoln letters as nothing more than a hoax that Sandburg changed his mind.
While there was monetary compensation for Minor’s fraud, she seems to have been driven by a want of fame. Other forgers of the Lincoln memory were after fortune. Producing Lincoln letters was a potential source of riches but trying to forge the Lincoln signature was an easier way to try to make money.
Lincoln memorabilia hunting started even before he became President. Henry Rankin, who studied in the Lincoln and Herndon Law Offices in Springfield, asked Lincoln for an autograph in 1858.
It is this signature, either A. Lincoln or Abraham Lincoln that is so prized by collectors and worth so much. Even in Lincoln’s Collected Works it is possible to find notes under entries such as this one from an endorsement: “close and signature have been cut off but copied below in pencil, presumably by the autograph collector.”
It was therefore very tempting for con artists to try their hand at Lincoln’s signature and affix it to items of dubious provenance in order to make some quick cash off of unsuspecting admirers of the 16th President. The impetus for this interest in any kind of Lincoln memorabilia was the assassination of Lincoln which made him into a national martyr. Examples of Lincoln mementos range from the macabre (a sliver of a bloody pillow case slip) to the mundane (Lincoln’s hairbrush-although this item is very improbable since Lincoln’s hair was rarely in order). There a few Lincoln forgers who became infamous such as Charles Weisberg, aka, The Baron; Henry Woodhouse, and the team of Harry Sickles and Eugene Field II. Their handiwork can still be found today. One item, a book of 19th century sheet music, which was part of Sickles and Field’s very large and lucrative counterfeiting operation appeared on PBS’ History Detectives(which uses the great Elvis Costello song above for a theme song).
The Sickles and Field scam in the 1930s involved Mary Todd Lincoln’s former coachman, William P. Brown and a Muskegon County Michigan notary public, Frank Thatcher. Sickles and Field had Brown autograph 19th century books and maps. Thatcher’s role was to attest that Brown’s signature was genuine and attach his notary seal. After acquiring this semblance of legitimacy, Lincoln’s signature, either Abraham Lincoln or A. Lincoln was added by Sickles. Thus, on the face of it, any of these particular items appeared to be Lincoln’s former possessions. Brown was most likely unaware of the intentions of the men as a newspaper article noting that he had been the last person alive employed by the Lincoln’s had appeared in 1931 and brought him public attention as a result. Similarly, Thatcher only thought he was certifying the authenticity of Brown’s signature. Sickles and Field also created forgeries utilizing the signature of famous personages such as Mark Twain and Theodore Roosevelt, among others. Unlike the aforementioned forger Charles Weisberg who was arrested and died in prison, Sickles and Field never even drew a formal charge for their fraudulent products.
One could be cynical about the people who were fleeced by Sickles and Field or other forgers and say with Dave Hannum (not P.T. Barnum who was sued by Hannum over the authenticity of the Cardiff Giant), “There’s a sucker born every minute.” It is however more important to ask what the commodification of the Lincoln memory says about Americans despite the fact that forgeries and replicas mistaken for the genuine article are in existence. What does the inclusion of forgeries in private collections and Lincoln libraries tell us about the forging of the Lincoln memory? The continued existence of private Lincoln memorabilia collections along with Lincoln letters fetching six figures on the auction block suggest that Lincoln artifacts retain a strong interest to this day. It is also surprising to me that there is an apparent dearth of fraudulent Lincoln productions showing up from time to time in light of how much Lincoln items sell for.
Motion pictures have not been around for a very long time but they have come a long way sinceLumière’s “Exiting the Factory” (1895). Lincoln’s image would appear on film for the first time in 1901 in an Edison Film Company production called The Martyred Presidents which shows a female mourner at an altar upon which the images of all the assassinated Presidents up to that time (Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley) appear in turn—then it gets strange for the last few seconds where a figure is begging for something before a statue of Justice. The Edison Film Company would also be the first to use Lincoln’s image in a drama, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903). Since the first use of Lincoln in 1901, according to Mark S. Reinhart’s research, Lincoln has been a character in “at least 300 productions.”
Despite that sizeable number, Lincoln has not appeared as the main character very often since the 1940s. The next film slotted to feature Lincoln is Stephen Spielberg’s much delayed (now due out 2011) Lincolnbiographical film which is set to star Liam Neeson as Lincoln. Over the years Lincoln has been played on screen by famous actors such as Henry Fonda (Young Mr. Lincoln-1939), Raymond Massey (Abe Lincoln in Illinois-1940; The Day Lincoln Was Shot-1959; How the West Was Won-1961), and Sam Waterston (Gore Vidal’s Lincoln-1988), singer/actors such as Kris Kristofferson (Tad-1995) and also by Lincoln impersonators such as Charles Brame (Happy Gilmore-1996; Zoolander-2001; The Man Who Invented the Moon-2003). The quality of presentation in terms of resemblance to Lincoln and accuracy of the narrative of Lincoln on screen varies widely of course. The best hope on both elements is still the documentary form and there have been two very good ones this year, PBS' Looking for Lincoln and KET's Lincoln: I, too, am a Kentuckian.
It is impossible to say for certain what Lincoln would have thought about his depiction as Snake Plissken in the picture above this post, but Lincoln had seen worse representations of himself in his day. The defaced currency is typical of the nature of how Lincoln is most often seen in contemporary American society, which is to say, not seriously. Lincoln appears much more often on television than in film. It seems that Lincoln always comes up for humorous effect suddenly and then disappears in these TV sightings, such as this recent Family Guy episode. Professional historians might balk at the inaccuracies of the short scene at Ford’s Theatre in the brief clip from the cartoon show. However, to ignore or decry such portrayals of Lincoln based on the false information contained within them misses the point—these events are meant to be entertaining. Beyond that, it might be important to ask why the silly Lincoln gets laughs or why writers would even imagine that viewers would crack up at seeing Lincoln. Is it because most Americans carry around an image of a sober, albeit simplistic (since he loved to tell jokes and humorous stories), Lincoln? And further, perhaps the preformed ideas about the serious Lincoln not only open up the contrast for comedic purposes but also show that Lincoln’s prestige is safe, even if it is not high as it once was.
Due to time constraints (teaching class, research, editing a book project, etc.), I will now officially only be updating this blog once a month, although I will post more than once per month if spare time can be found. This doesn't count as the update for this month--I'm working on that post. In the meantime, take a look at this Chicago Tribune article on Lincoln memory which asks: what would Lincoln say about race today?
Not July 2nd when independence was voted for (probably to the chagrin of John Adams) nor August 2nd when the Declaration was signed, but July 4th (the date the Declaration was approved) is the day that the United States celebrates its independence from Great Britain.
Therefore, in part because of the symbolic importance of the day and the because of the opportunity to have a special session of Congress approve measures already taken after the fact, it was on July 4 of 1861 that Lincoln’s message to Congress occurred. In describing secession as a “farcical pretense,” Lincoln appealed to the Declaration, “the good old one, penned by Jefferson” over the declarations of the Southern “adversaries.” Lincoln asked why the Southerners had not included the words “all men are created equal.” For the answer he needed to look no further than his friend Alexander H. Stephens who had become the Vice President of the Confederacy.
Stephens in his “Cornerstone Speech” on March 21, 1861, said about the Constitution of the Confederate States that it “had put to rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.” Stephens noted that Thomas Jefferson had been right that the question of slavery would unmake the Union but he was wrong in believing “that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically.” Any thoughts during the Founding or after it that slavery might somehow pass from existence in the United States were wrong said Stephens because “[t]hey rested on the assumption of the equality of the races.” The Confederate government on the contrary was “founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.” According to Stephens this inequality was a “great physical, philosophical and moral truth.”
Stephens had provided Lincoln with as direct a statement as one could wish for to answer his query and yet Lincoln did not make reference to the speech. In fact, as Frederick Douglass rightly notes, the July 4th message of Lincoln does not speak of slavery. Douglas Wilson states that, as Douglass would understand later, a critical reaction to the lack of antislavery language in the message is exactly what Lincoln sought to provoke. Douglass would much more forcefully say the words which Lincoln would reserve for the Second Inaugural, namely, that slavery was the cause of the war. Whereas Lincoln qualified his statement with “somehow”, Douglass in 1861 said “[e]very reflecting man knows, and knows full well, that the real source and centre of the treason, rebellion and bloodshed under which the country is now staggering as if to its fall, is slavery. Every one knows that this is a slaveholder’s rebellion, and nothing else.” This is not to say Douglass needed a Lincoln message to speak out against the “self-deception” that slavery was not to blame for the war. In his Douglass’ Monthly in June Douglass declared that the “very stomach of this rebellion is the Negro in the condition of a slave. Arrest that hoe in the hands of the Negro, and you smith the rebellion in the very seat of its life.”
The Declaration of Independence, like Lincoln’s message, does not mention slavery. The reason for the omission in the Declaration is because Jefferson was overruled by his fellow slave holders in the Congress and the passages against slavery (including the description of slavery as “War against human Nature itself”) were cut. Nevertheless, it was the Declaration without mention of slavery which Lincoln would elevate to Constitutional status in the Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” In closing the Gettysburg Address Lincoln refined words from his July 4th message (“government of the people, by the same people”) into his exhortation “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Lincoln also used the Declaration in his message to run a connecting thread through the Union. From 1776 to the present, the Union was perpetual, the states united, said Lincoln. No “sophism” or “drugging the public mind” of the South could change that fact.
Unlike the “same Bible” which was read and “same God” who was prayed to and invoked for aid by the North and the South, July 4th and the Declaration of Independence which is commemorated on that the day was emptied of content for the Confederacy as much as for the Great Republic of Rough and Ready. Happy birthday, USA!
As a patriotic display of one of the United States’ “big cheeses” (sponsored by Cheez-It), Lincoln was sculpted in cheese by cheesecarver Troy Landwehr. This is the second time of three possible years that Lincoln (therefore the biggest cheese?) has been carved out of cheese by Landwehr. In 2007, he sculpted a Mount Rushmore out of a 700 pound block of Land o’ Lakes brand cheddar cheese. That sculpture met its end in Oklahoma as snack cubes.
This years’ Lincoln cheese sculpture (pictured above) doesn’t share the spotlight with any other Presidents. At 6-feet, 8 inches, it is slightly larger than life. However, this sculpture is just another massive block of cheese depicting Lincoln fated for consumption, eventually. In the meantime, the cheese sculpture is on display and consumers of the Lincoln image will have to settle for Cheez-It snack crackers in stores. The Kellogg’s press release (parent company of Cheez-It) shows the unabashed corporate exploitation of the Lincoln memory: “Cheez-It crackers bring the big cheese taste baked into each little bite, so it seems fitting for the brand to tip our hat this year to our nation's 'biggest' president during his bicentennial year.”
Corporate use of Lincoln to make a buck is not new. Lincoln log toys were created in 1916 and are still sold today. Lincoln Motors became the company that Presidents from FDR to Bush Sr. turned to for limousines. The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company (now Lincoln Financial Group) opened in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1905 using, with permission from Robert Todd Lincoln, Lincoln’s likeness. The company’s slogan was “Its name indicates its Character.” A young frontiersman Lincoln was depicted in a statue outside the Fort Wayne office. The company did establish a Lincoln museum in Fort Wayne which they closed after 77 years last June citing poor attendance. One can only wonder if Robert Lincoln would be ok with the interactive Subway sandwich ads from last year for their $5 footlong sandwiches featuring “urban” Lincoln asking potential customers to send out “5 dolla hollas” to friends. See below.
This food hawking Lincoln, whether it is coming from Cheez-It or Subway, is devoid of any semblance of seriousness about the 16th President. Barry Schwartz will argue that Lincoln’s presentation in advertising is more proof that Americans do not respect greatness or heroes. However, the use of Lincoln by these companies surely demonstrates that they think Lincoln resonates well enough to sell products. And, perhaps Lincoln’s national stature is so well founded that there’s nothing to worry about from such advertising among those persons serious enough to care about the Lincoln legacy.
On June 4, 2009, the city of Louisville, Kentucky unveiled a new Lincoln statue at its Waterfront Park. Dan Kelly a Republican State Senator for Springfield (Kentucky) and co-chair of the Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission had an idea for a statue in order to “reclaim our Lincoln heritage.” This new Lincoln monument is the outcome of that initial idea. Lincoln was born in Kentucky of course, a fact which is reflected in the stylized log cabin which is the Commonwealth’s Bicentennial logo. Louisville already had another link to the Lincoln memory in the Farmington Historical Plantation (which was a hemp plantation fueled by slave labor) where Lincoln visited his good friend Joshua Speed for three weeks in 1841.
Famous Louisville resident Muhammad Ali and Kentucky Colonel (Lincoln is not even a posthumous Kentucky Colonel for some reason but he did visit their 2008 BBQ, was on hand at the sunset dedication ceremony. Ali also talked about Lincoln’s “ideas of unity, justice and equality” with Boys and Girls Club students at his Ali Center before the unveiling. Ali’s name at birth, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., represents another Lincoln connection. Cassius Marcellus Clay (1810-1903), whom Ali and his father Clay, Sr. were named for, was a Kentucky emancipationist and journalist who served three terms in the Kentucky General Assembly and was a founding member of the Republican Party. Cassius Clay was also related to Senator Henry Clay, Lincoln’s “beau ideal of a statesman.” Cassius Clay was appointed Minister to Russia in 1861 by Lincoln and witnessed Tsar Alexander’s II edict which emancipated the serfs. Clay was recalled from Russia in 1862 and offered a generalship in order to get the corrupt Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, out of the country as Minister to Russia. Clay made a speech in Washington when he returned saying that he would not “draw a sword to keep the chains upon another fellow-being” and assured Lincoln that Kentucky would not secede if emancipation of the slaves was announced (Clay was sent back to Russia in 1863 and later played a role in the purchase of Alaska). Lincoln did issue his preliminary proclamation after the battle of Antietam.
The monument is the work of Kentucky sculptor Ed Hamilton. Hamilton has depicted Lincoln in the statue clean shaven as he would have appeared around the time of the visit to the Speed plantation. An 18,000 pound, but approachable (especially by children climbing), Lincoln holds a law book and sits on a 22,000 pound rock. Hamilton also created 4 bas-relief panels to accompany the statue. One panel shows Lincoln as a shirtless muscled youth with an ax and a younger Lincoln reading beside the fireplace. Another panel depicts chained and naked slaves—a scene Lincoln had witnessed on a steamboat with Speed on the way from Louisville to St. Louis in 1841 (though Lincoln never described the slaves as naked). A third panel illustrates the division of the Union with a battle scene and Lincoln consoling a crying woman and on the other side of a divided line, a woman holding a soldier who is probably dead. The final panel places Lincoln inside a room at the Speed plantation into which a slave can be seen entering with a tray of refreshments. The panels and Lincoln statue are surrounded by amphitheatre seats with words of Lincoln (all written well after 1841) inscribed such as “with malice toward none, with charity for all” (Second Inaugural Address, 1865); “as I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master” (fragment on Democracy, undated but assigned to 1858 in the Collected Works); and “I too, am a Kentuckian” (undelievered speech to Kentuckians, 1861).
The commemoration of Lincoln found in the monument and the celebratory unveiling and press coverage in Louisville’s The Courier-Journal aim at the words of Lincoln which were not used (despite the fact that he said them to a sitting Kentucky Governor in 1864): “I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think, and feel.”.
However, by focusing on the 1841 steamboat trip and stay at Speed’s plantation, the presentation of the Lincoln memory on slavery in Louisville is beset by difficulties. Lincoln’s stay on the Speed plantation and witnessing slavery first hand “haunted Lincoln and shaped his views” according to the Courier-Journal. This statement is followed by an 1855 quote from a Lincoln letter to Joshua Speed which is clipped in such a way that the sight of slaves, “ a continual torment”, is ostensibly about the stay at the plantation even though it is not. The “continual torment” which Lincoln writes Speed about was the sight of slaves on the steamboat. Given the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, tensions over slavery’s expansion were growing daily. Lincoln and many other Northerners had to worry because the Missouri Compromise of 1820 had been abrogated by the Compromise of 1850 which had started to fall apart upon passage. Yet, in 1855, Lincoln only sought to restore the 1850 compromise and oppose Kansas’ entry into the Union as a slave-state (the ‘civil war’ in Kansas, as Lincoln called it in 1859, known as Bleeding Kansas had just started by the time of his letter to Speed). “Naturally anti-slavery” or not, Lincoln likely thought he was expressing the majority opinion of the North when he told Speed: “You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the constitution and the union.” In other words, Lincoln at this time was only opposed to spread of slavery and was not going to agitate Southerners and a good deal of Northerners by advocating emancipation.
But back to the “continual torment” for a moment. This was certainly new sentiment from Lincoln that had developed the more he thought about slavery. In 1841 not long after the steamboat trip, Lincoln wrote in a careless digression in a letter Speed’s half-sister: “Nothing of interest happened during the passage, except the vexatious delays occasioned by the sand bars be thought interesting. By the way, a fine example was presented on board the boat for contemplating the effect of the condition upon human happiness. A gentleman had purchased twelve negroes in different parts of Kentucky and was taking them to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six together. A small iron clevis was around the left wrist of each, and this fastened to the main chain by a shorter one at a convenient distance from, the others; so that the negroes were strung together precisely like so many fish upon a trot-line. In this condition they were being separated forever from the scenes of their childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, and many of them, from their wives and children, and going into perpetual slavery where the lash of the master is proverbially more ruthless and unrelenting than any other where; and yet admit all these distressing circumstances, as we would think them, they were the most cheerful and apparently happy creatures on board. One, whose offence for which he had been sold was an over-fondness for his wife, played the fiddle almost continually; and the others danced, sung, cracked jokes, and played various games with cards from day to day. How true is it that ‘God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb’, or in other words, that He renders the worst of human conditions tolerable, while He permits the best, to be nothing better than tolerable.”
By selecting certain writings of Lincoln to read dramatically and having a 50 piece orchestra perform Aaron Copeland’s Lincoln Portrait, Louisville and the Commonwealth of Kentucky wanted the “naturally anti-slavery” Lincoln to claim for their heritage while presenting him more like he had been Cassius Clay. It is not reported in the Courier-Journal whether Muhammad Ali talked about why he and his father were originally named for Clay and not Lincoln.
