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[David Lockmiller]

(04-23-2017 08:18 PM)Gene C Wrote:  

(04-23-2017 06:02 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  I also believe that if Abraham Lincoln had married Ann Rutledge, there would have been no possibility that he would have been President of the United States.

I can agree with that David. Despite what Herndon and others may have negatively said about Mary and their marriage, Mary was the one that helped him through the setbacks, and kept the ambition alive to keep trying. From the beginning she saw something about him that others didn't see.

I have a slightly different take. I think that politics became the center of Lincoln's life after the death of Ann and then the marriage to Mary. If Abraham Lincoln had married Ann Rutledge, I believe that a happy marriage and family life together would have occupied much more of his time and attention. Politics would not have become the overwhelming center of Lincoln's life and, as a result, he would not have become President of the United States at this critical time in the history of this nation and the world.

Lincoln preserved both democracy for the world and the integrity of this nation at the same time by means of all of his efforts and accomplishments against the trials and tribulations of five long and difficult years of civil war. For the greater good of all mankind, I must hopefully say as Lincoln said in his second inaugural address regarding the immense suffering and loss by so many, endured on both sides of the Civil War: "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."