Michael Beschloss: Presidents for generations have turned to Lincoln for solace and guidance
At midnight a few days after his nomination for president in 1952, Adlai Stevenson sneaked out of the Illinois governor's mansion in Springfield and walked the few blocks to Abraham Lincoln's home. After ascertaining that no one had seen him, he was let in by the caretaker and sat down for an hour in Lincoln's rocking chair. Afterward, while walking home, he later told a friend, he felt a "deep calm" as he faced the prospect of serving as president of the United States.
It is no surprise that President-elect Barack Obama says he has been rereading the words of Lincoln; the 16th president has been a source of solace—and guidance—for American leaders for well more than a century. Like Stevenson, whose ancestor had been a Lincoln campaign manager, Theodore Roosevelt had listened to tales of his family ties to the great man since he was a child: his father had worked in Lincoln's government and escorted the president and Mary to church.
Roosevelt hung a Lincoln portrait above the fireplace of his White House office, intoning that he aspired—"so far as one who is not a great man can model himself upon one who was"—to do "what Lincoln would have done." Eager to expand his own authority, he pointed to Lincoln's seizure of unprecedented power during the Civil War, insisting that he belonged to the "Lincoln-Jackson school" of presidential might.
However, Roosevelt sometimes privately derided the faith in the people's wisdom that was such a hallmark of Lincoln. Fearing "the tyranny of the mob," TR felt that Americans were best ruled by well-born, elegantly schooled presidents like himself. He told his sister that 51 percent of the time, the people's voice may be the "voice of God," but the rest of the time it was "the voice of the devil … or a fool."
Much of Franklin Roosevelt's interest in Lincoln focused on how he could steal the first Republican president from the pantheon of Republican icons for political exploitation by Democrats. He said the Republicans had broken their ties to Lincoln by becoming the party of big business. He did not explain how the racism of Southern Democratic senators or his opposition to an anti-lynching bill equipped his own party to claim the Great Emancipator....
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It is no surprise that President-elect Barack Obama says he has been rereading the words of Lincoln; the 16th president has been a source of solace—and guidance—for American leaders for well more than a century. Like Stevenson, whose ancestor had been a Lincoln campaign manager, Theodore Roosevelt had listened to tales of his family ties to the great man since he was a child: his father had worked in Lincoln's government and escorted the president and Mary to church.
Roosevelt hung a Lincoln portrait above the fireplace of his White House office, intoning that he aspired—"so far as one who is not a great man can model himself upon one who was"—to do "what Lincoln would have done." Eager to expand his own authority, he pointed to Lincoln's seizure of unprecedented power during the Civil War, insisting that he belonged to the "Lincoln-Jackson school" of presidential might.
However, Roosevelt sometimes privately derided the faith in the people's wisdom that was such a hallmark of Lincoln. Fearing "the tyranny of the mob," TR felt that Americans were best ruled by well-born, elegantly schooled presidents like himself. He told his sister that 51 percent of the time, the people's voice may be the "voice of God," but the rest of the time it was "the voice of the devil … or a fool."
Much of Franklin Roosevelt's interest in Lincoln focused on how he could steal the first Republican president from the pantheon of Republican icons for political exploitation by Democrats. He said the Republicans had broken their ties to Lincoln by becoming the party of big business. He did not explain how the racism of Southern Democratic senators or his opposition to an anti-lynching bill equipped his own party to claim the Great Emancipator....