Things Lincoln never said

[David Lockmiller]

(02-09-2014 06:00 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Hi Eva. I think this is the article you are referring to.

I should like to point out the prescient observations made by the author, Daniel Vollaro, in this piece published in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association in the Winter 2009 issue. From the first and second paragraphs of this article:

1. [T]he quotation is entirely apocryphal, emerging from within Stowe family tradition without any textual support or verification from the author herself.
2. On the Internet, where historical summaries are often disconnected from their sources entirely, Lincoln's alleged words are rapidly hardening into unqualified historical fact.
3. How did an apocryphal story emerge as the main evidence for Stowe's cultural legacy before the Civil War? That question is seldom asked by scholars, who treat the quotation more as a treasured Stowe family heirloom than a problem text, footnoting it and then moving on.
4. Lincoln's greeting drifts in the same strata of pseudo-historical flotsam that increasingly defines that which is considered "historical" in the digital age. The story persists not because of its historicity . . . .

All of this discussion of apocryphal quotations reminds me of my many criticisms of Spielberg’s “Lincoln” movie that I have made on this website. In this increasingly digital age, who is going to be making the necessary corrections of mistakes to Lincoln history promulgated in Spielberg’s Lincoln’s movie? When?

In February, 2013, Leslie Stahl introduced the “60 Minutes” piece on Spielberg’s “Lincoln” movie with these infamous words: “The film is filled with things about our 16th President that we, who are not Lincoln scholars, did not know.” It is now one year later. Has 60 Minutes announced any “Lincoln history” corrections? No!!!

I, for one, am concerned that Spielberg's "Lincoln" movie history is going to be "harden[ed] into unqualified historical fact" in this increasingly digital age.