What one word character description set President Lincoln apart?

[David Lockmiller]

(10-25-2024 06:45 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  

(10-25-2024 03:42 PM)Dennis Urban Wrote:  I like "passionate"

Lincoln had very strong ideals and ideas but he was not above taking advice and and suggestions, of which history records many examples. He would usually find a way to make his ideals and ideas work for the betterment of the country as a whole. That says it all for me.

I especially like the part which reads: "he was not above taking advice and suggestions, of which history records many examples."

The treatment of Indians across the United States would have changed dramatically and permanently had President Abraham Lincoln lived. Today, President Biden apologized for the United States regarding the organized disgraceful treatment of Indian school children for a great many decades after the Civil War.

In the spirit of what you wrote, Dennis, I should like to add a previous post of mine regarding President Lincoln's response upon learning the plight (a condition, state, or situation, especially an unfavorable or unfortunate one) of American Indians.

The president told a friend that [Episcopal Bishop Henry B.] Whipple “came here the other day and talked with me about the rascality of this Indian business until I felt it down to my boots.”. . . He pledged that “if we get through this war, and if I live, this Indian system shall be reformed.” [82 – Henry B. Whipple, Light and Shadows of a Long Episcopate: Being Reminiscences and Recollections of the Right Reverend Henry Benjamin Whipple, (1899), pages 136-137.] Similarly, in the winter of 1863-1864, he told Joseph La Barge, a steam-boat captain who protested against corrupt government Indian agents, “wait until I get this Rebellion off my hands, and I will take up this question and see that justice is done the Indian.” [83 – Hiram M. Chittenden, History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River: Life and Adventures of Joseph La Barge, (1903), page 342.] To Father John Beason, a noted Indian clergyman, he said “that as soon as the war was settled his attention should be given to the Indians and it should not cease until justice to their and my satisfaction was secured. [84 – John Beason to Henry W. Bellows, (1862), Bellow Papers, MHi.] In his 1862 annual message to Congress, Lincoln urged that it change the system. “With all my heart I thank you for your recommendation to have our whole Indian system reformed,” Whipple wrote the president. “It is a stupendous piece of wickedness and as we fear God ought to be changed.” Though Lincoln did not live to see this recommendation implemented, he gave a significant boost to the movement that eventually overthrew the corrupt system. [85 – Nichols, Lincoln and the Indians, page 145.]

The source of the citations is Professor Michael Burlingame in his Lincoln Prize winning (2010) book, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Vol. TWO, (2008), at pages 483-484.

I initiated the thread titled "RE: Had President Lincoln lived, . . . ."