Robert Todd Lincoln --The vitals

[ScholarInTraining]

(01-14-2018 06:57 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Just curious - why is it so important for you that he "was" no atheist respectively that he "believed" in" God"? Would you consider atheism as a "negative feature"?

? It's not important only for me. The question as to what his religious beliefs were came about, so some of us stepped in to give our answers. I showed how it's inaccurate to label RTL as nonreligious or atheist. I say "label" because it's just that. An inaccurate... label.

The following is a sobering account of what happened when he went to pay a visit to the Lincoln Memorial during his final year:


"February 1926, Bishop Joseph O.Hartzell was visiting the Rev. Herbert F. Randolph, Pastor of the Foundry Methodist Church, Washington, D.C. The Bishop expressed a desire to visit the Lincoln Memorial, stating as his reason that he was old and feeble and probably would never get to see it again.

The streets and sidewalks were covered with ice. They were standing with the Guard in front of the Lincoln statue when the Guard in hushed voice motioned them behind one of the large pillars, and whispered to them that the old gentleman who was being helped up the steps by his colored servant was Robert Lincoln, the aged son of our martyred President.

Mr. Lincoln dismissed his colored attendant, limped his way with the aid of his cane to the statue of his father, stood reverentiy looking into his for a few minutes, then fell on his knees in prayer for some time, and rising he kissed the foot of the statue, waved a kiss to his face, and departed.

That was the last time Robert Lincoln ever looked upon the marvelous image of his father, our beloved Abraham Lincoln.

(signed)

E.E. Helms."





Now if it hadn't have been that these men happened to see Robert there and decided to write about it, this moment would have been lost in time forever.

Robert thought he was alone. Perhaps he'd done this several times.

To the world, his father was the great ABRAHAM LINCOLN. To his sons, he was just their dad.

So as for religion...only God knows (and I mean that wholeheartedly) what RTL did and said and thought 24/7, 365 days a year, and what sort of religious activities he took part in.

Remember: for every eyewitness testimonial, telegram, and letter that has been saved, who knows how many were lost to time, are under private ownership, are illegible, are yet to be found, or have been destroyed?

One could theorize that even if RTL considered himself to be nonreligious in a misused sense of the term, which I can't find any evidence of, he became more religious as he got older.

As for why it's important to me.....well, why are any of these topics important to anyone? It means you're passionate about something. Willing to learn more about that thing and throw in what you know about it to add to the pot of knowledge. It means you like to go searching for truth on your own instead of blindly accepting whatever. And it's fun!

Just as it's important to some to continually try to prove that RTL wasn't a good guy, it's important to me to continually try to do the opposite. Too many myths and outright lies about the Lincoln family have been presented as "fact" for way too long! I think it shows respect to the Lincolns, to scholars, and to historians to try to refute as many of them as we can.

No, I don't like that Robert's reputation has been destroyed by the likes of William Herndon - who couldn't stand any of the Lincoln sons - and authors who did the same thing unknowingly and/or for dramatic effect.

For some of the most striking examples of this, check out the books "The Inner World Of Abraham Lincoln", "Lincoln's Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldier's Home", and "The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look At Abraham and Mary".

Lincoln books can be spot on about some things and very wrong about others. No offense to the authors. But when they allow personal emotions and nonexpert opinions to deliberately OR inadvertently present some inaccuracy as irrefutable fact, it destroys so much. Knowledge, book reports, documentaries, et cetera...

When the average person half-reads a book, they're not always going to question something. They're not even going to look at sources and references, they're going to take it and run with it.

Especially if it's super dramatic - like the idea that Abraham Lincoln's oldest child was "the bad son".