Assessing Reagan's Place in History
As the lives of great men all remind us, figuring out their place in history is no easy thing.
It only seems simpler when the passage of time lends perspective. People who affect the world during their lifetime, after all, may be judged for their deeds but only evaluated by their legacies. Some movers and shakers strut their hour upon the stage, signifying nothing. Others leave profound imprints sometimes not fully seen until years later.
Those who rule or govern are the hardest of all to judge. I think this is because governance itself is a necessary evil, which must control and constrain the evil in men themselves.
The rare rule of saints in history is a reminder: Images of Marcus Aurelius were revered in Roman households for a century after his death, but his emperorship flowed into failure. Aurelius himself grasped this; in his Meditations he wrote, what is the end of it all? A puff of smoke (the funeral pyre) and a legend — or maybe not even a legend.
This, from the ruler of his known world.
A historian of Julius Caesar's era seriously posed the question of whether it might have been better if Caesar had never been born. One of the greatest military leaders in human history, hugely charismatic, with keen insight into the troubles of his time, Caesar was also the destroyer of hundreds of thousands and the republic itself, implacable yet personally kind and generous, hated by most of the elite, loved by the common Roman citizen and soldier.
No one really understood him then, and no one fully understands him now. His legacy was not his conquests but his destruction of the last debris of republican rule, which allowed his successor, Augustus, to erect the Roman Empire.
American presidents are not emperors, but they are in a real sense elected kings. Unlike the various"greats" of the Old World, few have been warriors. George Washington was no Caesar; conscious of the lessons of Roman history, he helped create rather than destroy his republic.
Abraham Lincoln, the great divider and great unifier — more than a million dead bodies — was also personally irreproachable. Both men left lasting legacies; they changed America profoundly and permanently, but — and this still bothers us — nobody ever really knew them.
Washington remained dignified, aloof and in command. Lincoln, beloved of his people, never seemed to feel himself one of them. Noticeably, in moving speeches, he referred to"this people" or"this town," never"my people" or"my town."
This seems to be a characteristic of"great" men. Caesar called himself"Caesar," omitting the Roman custom of first and gentile names, and in different times and society Washington and Lincoln might have done the same.
For better or worse, the long-term reputation of American presidents now resides in the hands of (mainly) academic historians.
The good thing is that the vilification and hatreds expressed by contemporary politicians and press — and Lincoln was probably the most vilified president in our history, even by the Northern press, which described him as"ape" or"baboon" and much preferred 19th-century florid oratory to his simple, beautiful style — is largely forgotten or ignored. Not what contemporaries thought or said about presidents counts, only their lasting legacies.
The bad thing, of course, is that even historians are ruled by fashion and current prejudices, which is why reputations rise and fall. Historians also always believe they are smarter, more learned and perhaps wiser than the presidents whose reputations they dissect....