Abraham Lincoln and Robert Burns by Alec Ross

[David Lockmiller]

THE YEAR IS 1865

Dinner has been served, toasts given and received, cigars lit. A tall and dignified if slightly stooped man is reciting “To a Mouse.” “Wee sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie Oh what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa’ sae hasty wi’ bickerin’ brattle! I’d be laith to run and chase thee wi’ murdering’ pattle.”

The speaker was famous for his rich and sonorous Midwestern drawl, but the accent tonight was unmistakably Ayrshire. It’s not clear whether the assembled dignitaries had wanted Burns with their Brandy. Then again, when the performer is Abraham Lincoln, who the hell is going to object?

Because this was no ordinary dinner and this was no ordinary gathering. Lincoln had won the war and achieved a second term, but now he had to win the peace. To that end, he invited all the senators and all the governors to the Whitehouse for the weekend to plan the rebirth of a nation rent asunder by a protracted and bitter civil war.

To a captivated audience, he continued to recite. “I’m truly sorry man’s dominion Has broken nature’s social union, And justifees that ill opinion that makes me startle at thee, Thy pair earth born companion and fellow mortal."

How those words must have resonated with the leaders of a shattered America. It was all too much for one old senator, who turned to Lincoln’s secretary, the softly-spoken John Hay and said: “What the hell is Abe talking about?"

“It’s Scotch, sir” replied Hay. “The President adores the Scotchman who wrote it. He reads him constantly and recites him every evening. He says he would not be the man he was, would not have won the war, indeed would not have been President, had it not been for Robert Burns."

As Lincoln concluded the poem he turned to Hay. “Now we have won this great war, I must make good on my promise to go to Scotland and pay homage to the man without whom everything would be different. Tomorrow you must book my passage."

Hay did indeed book the President’s sailing, but the ship left without him. A few days after the dinner, Lincoln visited the theatre and a bullet from the gun of John Wilkes Booth meant that this was a pilgrimage that would never be made. And so ended one of the truly great political careers, and a life and a politics shaped utterly and enduringly and fundamentally by the writings of a farmer and exciseman from Alloway who had been dead for 70 years.