Why was Lincoln "great?"

[brtmchl]

Which Lincoln do you believe? The awkward, story telling frontier folk hero, the moral political genius, The Great Emancipator, the shaper of a nation, or the savior of the union?

I think along with all of the above posts, what made Lincoln great was his ability to argue. He was a brilliant man, not only in the ways he thought, and wrote; but also by the words he spoke. He was an amazing orator. Arguements drove him, often recrafting certain political ideas, at times making them more aggressive. At others rethinking stances altogether, or even outgrowing his own prejudices. His ability to see the other side of an arguement without taking a hard vain stance is unheard of in this day of partisan politics. But his own ability to make an arguement was un-natural.
My favorite example is from Lincoln's letter to James Conkling. "You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional--I think differently. I think the constitution invests its Commander-in-chief, with the law of war, in time of war. The most that can be said, if so much, is, that slaves are property. Is there--has there ever been--any question that by the law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed whenever taking it, helps us, or hurts the enemy? .......You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistence to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time, then, for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes.
I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistence to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union.
Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive--even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.


The ability to play devil's advocate makes Lincoln great. Especially in a classroom setting. No other person can be so much fun to debate, his ambiguity leads often to arguements at both extreme ends of a topic. Such as slavery.

"I love him not because he was perfect but because he was not and yet triumphed. There was something left so at the crisis he was big enough to be inconsistent, cruel, merciful, peace loving, a fighter. Despising negroes, and letting them fight and vote. Protecting slavery and freeing slaves. he was a man, a BIG inconsistent MAN." - W.E.B. Du Bois

Some people will argue that he never wanted to free the slaves as the Greeley letter is often quoted, or that he was a racist. In 1861 Frederick Douglas called Lincoln "the most powerful slave catcher in the world." . But Look at the last part of the Greely letter. "I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free." Or as in his letter to A.G. Hodges, "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power."
By the election of 1864, Lincoln believes he will lose and invites Frederick Douglas to the White House urging him to organize bands to get as many slaves out of the south as possible. This mission never happens. The fall of Atlanta shifts the election in Lincoln's favor. Lincoln, I believe, was limited by his powers in the beginning, playing politics to achieve small gains as our country did from the beginning. There could have been compromises made, as there had been for decades to possibly prevent the war, only to see the problems arise again in the future. But with Lincoln's war powers he acted upon his morality and seized the opportunity to reconstruct the nation. "Never let a crisis go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel. Did Lincoln maneuver the South into firing on Fort Sumpter? A topic for a later debate.

In the end what truly made Lincoln great was his capacity to grow.