Review of "And There Was Light"

[David Lockmiller]

(01-29-2025 12:58 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  Jon Meacham, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (New York: Random House, 2022) 676 pp.

In his epilogue, Meacham ties in the preceding pages with the events that took place long after Lincoln's assassination. Noting that America has seemingly fallen short in its attempts to keep Lincoln's vision in place, Meacham doesn't blame Lincoln for dreaming too big but rather blames those who followed for not having dreams that were large enough. Lincoln showed society that a failure to live up to our democratic ideal during the Civil War would have, once and for all, ended the American experiment, which continues to hold true to this day.

In a trenchant phrase, Meacham writes, "Abraham Lincoln did not bring about heaven on earth. Yet he defended the possibilities of democracy and the pursuit of justice at an hour in which the means of amendment, adjustment, and reform were under assault. What if the constitutional order had failed . . . ?

Lincoln showed society that a failure to live up to our democratic ideal during the Civil War would have, once and for all, ended the American experiment, which continues to hold true to this day.

Best
Rob

U. S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens ended the epilogue to his book, A Supreme Court Memoir - Five Chiefs, with this observation:

An Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln shared Cephalus's thoughts* about justice and my views about sovereign immunity. In his State of the Union message of 1861, he said: "It is as much the duty of Government to render prompt justice against itself, in favor of its citizens, as it is to administer the same between private individuals."

* "Cephalus accepted Socrates' suggestion that justice consisted of speaking the truth and paying one's debts."

In terms of constitutional responsibility, this aphorism should apply to government officials, as well as citizens.