ncelled History: Abraham Lincoln // Scott Johnson

I have a happy memory of taking two of my youngest daughters to see Andrew Ferguson read from his new book Land of Lincoln at Magers & Quinn Booksellers in Minneapolis’ Uptown neighborhood in June 2007. Andy was warmly welcoming us all and we all enjoyed the reading. (To that happy memory, I can add the current observation that Magers & Quinn still is with us. It is a beautiful bookshop that has defied all odds.

In Mark Twain Tonight, Hal Holbrook was first famous for impersonating Mark Twain. Andy dedicates a humorous section of Land of Lincoln for Lincoln impersonators. I was able to see him in Minneapolis during his book tour and thought he could make a decent living as a successor for Hal Holbrook. This made me wonder about Mark Twain’s thoughts on Lincoln.

I looked online and found that Twain had recalled at Carnegie Hall on February 12, 1901.

This war touched the hearts of every nation, North and South. The South was not ashamed of the sacrifices we made. In those days, we believed we were fighting to defend the right – and it wasn’t a trivial fight. We were fighting for our sweethearts and our homes as well as our lives. Today, we don’t regret the outcome, we are happy that it came out the way it did, but the South is proud that we tried. You can be proud of the record we set.

We are here to honour the most noble and best man this land has ever produced, Washington. The great conflict started when soldiers from both the North and South joined forces to sing the same old tune, “We’re coming.” Father Abraham, three hundred thousands strong.” The bravest and most talented soldiers went out to fight under the flag and for what was right. They suffered hardships comparable to traversing the globe four to five times in the olden days. They fought endless battles, and suffered unimaginable hardships.

The old wounds have healed and we, the South and you, are still brothers. It is an honor to be among the soldiers who fought for The Lost Cause. Now, it is a high privilege to be here tonight to pay our humble homage to Abraham Lincoln. We also remember that even though we were once enemies, you and I of the North can now sing the great hymn “America.”

Twain, a 1907 writer, wrote to support the Lincoln Birthplace Farm becoming a national park.

The sight of anything that has been attributed to a great man or done great deeds is a satisfying part of the human instinct. Many people make pilgrimages from the town where Shakespeare lived. Hartford protected her Charter Oak for centuries as it had once been damaged by a Colony. In most cases, the connection between the great man of the great event and the relic that we revere is accidental. Shakespeare could have lived in any other place than Stratford. Connecticut’s charter might also have been hidden in a woodchuck hole. It was not an accident that Lincoln was planted on a Kentucky farm half-way between the lakes and Gulf. It was a solid association. Lincoln was right where he belonged. If the Union was to be saved it would have to be saved by a man of such a heritage. It was impossible for any wintry New England Brahmin to do it, nor any torrid cotton grower, to regard the distant Yankee as an obnoxious foreigner. It required a man of the frontier, where civil war meant the struggle of brother and sister and disunion as a raw and painful wound. It required someone who understood slavery as a living thing and not just as a book. It required someone who understood how human all the quarrel parties were, how similar they were at the bottom, who saw them all as part of himself and felt their dissensions as the tearing apart his own soul. The war was over and Georgia sent an army of gray soldiers to Massachusetts, while Massachusetts sent an army of blue soldiers to Kentucky. But Kentucky raised armies for both. This man, a Southern white man, was born on a Kentucky farm, and transplanted to an Illinois town. Providence chose him to “bind up the Nation’s wounds.” It is worth saving.

Twain’s observations can be disagreed with. One may find this or that point confusing. I believe that the spirit is still mostly right and that Andrew Ferguson shares the right portion of the spirit, as you might see in this episode of Uncancelled History. We have reached a point of ignorance and malice where a rescue mission is needed.

Quotable quote: “Discrediting Lincoln a way to discredit America.”

Another: “If nothing is known, everything is possible.”