What would Lincoln think of all this?

[Rob Wick]

My flippant side wants to say that Lincoln would say "been there, done that."

My serious side says that Lincoln would be saddened to see how things are, but not surprised. We like to say that the Civil War was the greatest existential crisis this nation faced, but I'm not sure I can agree with that, at least in a particular sense. To be sure, the nation faced a cleaving that if successful would have weakened both the northern country and the southern country immeasurably. There would have been very little chance for America to grow into the world power it became. Yet we would have survived as a people, and I honestly believe that had the Industrial Revolution came about the same way it did, the north would have prospered the same way the country did as a cohesive unit, although on a smaller scale. The south, had it remained agrarian and continued slavery, would likely have become more like a third-world country.

The question mark would be how we would have reacted to the other existential crises that faced America, i.e., the Great Depression and World War II just to name the greatest. I guess what I'm trying to say is we place too much emphasis on what Lincoln would think. Ida Tarbell refused to answer that type of question, saying the answer was at best a guess that would be informed by the biases of the person asking it. She urged people, instead, to consider how Lincoln approached issues and study the way he reached a decision, and how willing he was to change his mind if new evidence pointed another way. Lincoln, while the greatest leader we've ever had, was still a man, and men can control events only so much (a point Lincoln often made). We can look at him for guidance only so far. We are the determiners of our own destiny.

Best
Rob