In San Francisco, Virus is Contained but Schools Are Still Closed

[David Lockmiller]

Rob wrote: “Tarbell warned her listeners not to make Lincoln out to be a demi-god.”

A demi-god is a mortal raised to divine rank.

I wondered: Why would anyone who wanted to honestly describe the character and reputation of President Abraham Lincoln want to ever describe Abraham Lincoln as a demi-god?

This is what I found in your post quoting Ida Tarbell:

1. “A man of high qualities, no doubt, but of qualities common in some degree to all of us.”

I made a birthday post this year in honor of President Abraham Lincoln:

Happy Birthday, President Abraham Lincoln!

Today, February 12, 2021, is the anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday (212 years ago; on 2-12-1809).

Tolstoy said of President Abraham Lincoln in 1908: “We are still too near to his greatness, but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding; just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.” (Doris Kearns Goodwin’s source in Team of Rivals: Leo Tolstoy, quoted in The World, New York, February 7, 1908.)

I believe that is the closest that I have come to describing Abraham Lincoln as a demi-god and I used Tolstoy’s words. But I agree whole-heartedly with Tolstoy’s description. I recently described Lincoln as “a man of his word” in a post or private message.

2. Tarbell noted "I believe their worship is being replaced by a growing feeling of admiration and respect for the man, very solidly based. Our people are much devoted to what they consider the American type with its characteristics of common sense, directness, humor, and a bull-dog grip--and Lincoln had all of these things."

3. Tarbell noted, "Again, you ask if there is not danger that 'popular adulation and an aura of mythical supermanliness will jeopardize the sober evaluation of Lincoln's true and inestimable worth.' Not to any great extent. The people on the whole, have him about right. His place with us depends upon the conviction of the people that he was a man, and not that he was a superman. It is likeness to themselves, the fact that they understand the words he uses and the arguments-they understand, too, the struggle that he went through, it is like their own."

Many thanks, Rob. That was a great post!!!!