Lincoln Research

[L Verge]

Eva - I agree most heartily with you and Dani (and I imagine most of this forum) that the film industry and other media most certainly screw up history; and we can't limit their damage to just the topic of Abraham Lincoln. However, many well-trained and respected historians do the same exact thing in books and classrooms across this nation. We could debate for hours on the pros and cons of revisionist history - just one example.

Personally, I understood Dani's adventure into the weird world of social media to be her way of explaining to the young that there are two (or more) ways to more clearly define Abraham Lincoln: the American idol, the human Lincoln, or the Lincoln who said one thing one time and something different another time. (David, please note the date of the address you quoted from. March of 1865, when the enemy is on its knees and the abolitionists have been appeased, was a very safe time for Lincoln to state clearly his views on slavery.)

Because of his premature death, we'll never know if Lincoln had a plan for reconstructing the old Union that would avoid the race issues 150 years later. Wild Bill presented an in-depth, scholarly approach to this subject at the recent Surratt conference. Plans are in the works for our museum to produce a booklet of his speech. The point though is whether or not Lincoln would still be an American idol if he had not been murdered and had failed at Reconstruction.

Back to the subject at hand, however, Dani's essay assignment gave her the opportunity to reach young and tech savvy future historians (I hope) who may learn to view all events in history from a variety of angles. That's the message I took from her various links, and the comments made by a few others appeared to be personal attacks on Dani herself. I'm an old teacher (yes, history) who believes in positive reinforcement, not negativity. And thank you, Gene.

P.S. I loved the one clip of the cartoon Constitution commenting on "Bill O'Rights." If that didn't hit home today about the misuse of history, nothing will.