|
"If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act."
Last weekend, President Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd came to life as actors Liam Neeson and Holly Hunter read excerpts from the Lincoln's letters and telegrams.
"Honorable A. Lincoln, president of the United States. We've reached New York in safety, hope you are well. Please send me by mail today [news:/p/00:25.0] and check for 50 dollars. Ted says, 'Are the goats well?' "
"Mrs. A. Linclon, the check will go to you. Tell Ted the goats and farther are very well, especially the goats."
He had a sense of humor, obviously. One thing Doris Kearns Goodwin learnt about the 16th president, while researching Lincoln's letters and diaries for a new book about America’s most popular president.
Doris Kearns Goodwin: "That's the greatness about Lincoln. I think in some ways compared to some of the founding fathers who do sometimes seem like they are still marbleized. He is so vulnerable. He is so open. He is so funny. He is so alive."
Historians say even as he struggled to hold the Union together, Lincoln felt the moral obligation to emancipate the slaves.
"There is no reason on the world why the Negro is not entitled to all the natural rights that enumerated in the Declaration of Independence"
From a distance of a century and a half, historians are trying to analyze not just Lincoln's governing style but his moods. Goodwin says at one point in 1835, Lincoln became severely depressed.
Doris Kearns Goodwin: "He had broken his engagement with Mary Todd Lincoln and knew he had hurt her by doing so.His best friend Joshua Speed was leaving Illinois to go back to Kentucky, his most intimate friend. And his political career was on a downward slide. So his friends were worried that he would suicide, [news:/p/01:42.4] all they took all knives and razors from his room. And Joshua Speed came to his site and said Lincoln you must rally or you will die. And he said I would [news:/p/01:50.3] just too soon die but I haven't yet done anything to make the world remember that I have lived."
Of course, he did rally. He held the Union together and is considered by many Americans to be the country's most important president, one they can relate to on a personal level.
Jackie Posey: It meant so much for me to be here today [news:/p/02:07.2] my ancestors are what they came from. And for me, they actually built a walk in that go to soon bad then or go to soon to found, all're started with him.
And at the time when this country seems polarized on so many different issues, Americans seem drown again to Lincoln and his ideas.
Doris Kearns Goodwin: There is a wistfulness for a leader like Lincoln who was able to understand emotions and feelings and opinions on all sides of the political spectrum. I mean that was his great strength, which may be why Lincoln's second inaugural address seems so timely.
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as god has given us to see the right. Let us strive on to finish the work we are in. To do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
And by the way, Goodwin's book about Lincoln has been turned into a major motion picture by director Steven Spielberg with Liam Neeson in the leading role.
|