Reflections from History and Faith: Lincoln’s Path

By Jeff Olson

February is the month in which two of America’s greatest presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, have traditionally been honored. Both were born in that month; however, we are not into February just yet so here I will jump ahead and honor Lincoln for another reason—a specific event in his life occurring in the month of January. This event was a speech he gave when he was a young man not quite 29-yearsold; a speech which should speak to America in 2023 as much as it did in 1838.

Many believe Abraham Lincoln to be our greatest president, primarily due to his leadership during the Civil War. This leadership however was not a series of reactions to a four-year national crisis. Rather it was intentional, well thought-out, prudential and deliberate responses rooted in character and wisdom gained and cultivated over a journey of many years strewn with struggle, tragedy, pain, disappointment and finally a victory—a very costly victory he could not entirely relish nor experience but for a few weeks.

Abraham Lincoln failed in business in 1831. He was defeated for the legislature in 1832. He lost his job and couldn’t get into law school. He declared bankruptcy and spent the next 17 years of his life paying off the money he borrowed from friends to start his business. He was defeated for the legislature again in 1834. He suffered a broken heart when his fiancée died in 1835 and had a nervous breakdown thereafter in 1836, spending the next six months in bed. He was defeated in becoming the speaker of the state legislature in 1838, and two years later defeated in becoming an elector. He was defeated for Congress in 1844 and 1848. He was rejected for the job of Land Officer in his home state in 1849. He was defeated for the Senate in 1854 and suffered another defeat for Vice-President in 1856.

He was defeated for the Senate for the third time in 1858. After nearly 30 years of this, at this point (if not before) most of us would have grown weary and discouraged to the point of throwing in the towel and saying enough is enough. Not this man. On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States.

It is apparent that Lincoln’s life was one of more defeats than victories, and likely most political observers of the time didn’t give him much of a chance for amounting to much in the arena of public office. Ah… but this is where Lincoln stood out head and shoulders above others. He demonstrated that greatness first and foremost originates in personal virtue and determination.

He came by his nickname “Honest Abe” quite honestly. As but one example, when he was a young storekeeper in New Salem, Illinois, he accidentally shortchanged a customer by six and a quarter cents. Upon discovering the error, he walked 6 miles to pay the money back.

Though he failed in more endeavors than he succeeded, Lincoln came to see failure only as a decision to give up. In his words, “The path was worn and slippery. My foot slipped from under me, knocking the other out of the way, but I recovered and said to myself, it’s a slip and not a fall.” In his quest for and commitment to public service, he stated, “The sense of obligation to continue is present in all of us. A duty to strive is the duty of us all. I felt a call to that duty.”

In addition to his two most famous speeches, the “Gettysburg Address” and his “Second Inaugural Address,” Abraham Lincoln gave many other speeches, both prior to and during his presidency. One of them, the “Lyceum Address,” was presented before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, 185 years ago this week on January 27, 1838. This speech not only held broad implications for Lincoln’s later public policies but perhaps as important, has a timelier and more potent message for 2023 America. This speech was effectuated by a fire set in St. Louis by a mob a few weeks earlier. Lincoln’s subject was “the perpetuation of our political institutions.”

Lincoln warned of two results of a growing disregard for the rule of law. The first was mob rule: “whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and with impunity; depend on it, this Government cannot last.”

Lincoln also warned of those of great ambition who thirst and burn for distinction; “and, if possible, he will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.”

Whether left or right, Democrat or Republican, liberal, Libertarian or otherwise—both mob rule and tyrannical rule violate the rule of law because both are rule by man’s unrestrained base passions rather than by personal self-restraint/self-government possible only through applied religious [Christian] principle, spiritual authority and a belief in a future state of rewards and punishments. In the end, Lincoln’s solution must also be our solution:

“Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;--let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children’s liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap--let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;--let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.”