The 'Unknown'

FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF A STATESMAN

Photo by Bob Kirchman

He was somewhat of a hothead, given to heaping criticism on people he didn’t think much of. Growing up in the Pigeon Creek Valley of Indiana, he’d often pen vindictive notes and drop them on the road, sure to be picked up by the person who was the focus of his ire. This was in the days before “social” media and Twitter – er – “X.”

In the nineteenth century, he was a master of the limerick meme. There was no internet superhighway, but the country road served him just as well. He fostered some lifelong enemies on those country roads. His hot temper and quick pen might have been but a youthful indulgence, but the young man read law and eventually became a practicing lawyer in Springfield, Illinois.

Now you would think he might have learned better by that time, but he discovered the newspaper. Here he openly attacked his opponents with the same acerbic wit he had fostered in his youth – and he went too far. He wrote an ‘anonymous’ letter to the paper lampooning a politician named James Shields. Everyone in town thought it funny, except Shields. What’s more, by now everyone in town knew who wrote it!

Now he found himself challenged to a duel. This was 1842 after all. It was a matter of honor. Had their friends not intervened at the last minute to stop the duel, we could have lost an insignificant hothead? – not so fast. We could have lost one of the greatest men that ever lived, President Abraham Lincoln.

Most people know from history that Lincoln was not a very successful businessman in his early days, but few realize that he was extremely lacking when it came to skills in interpersonal relationships. Dale Carnegie is well known for writing “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” but did you know he also wrote “Lincoln, the Unknown,” [click to read] a biography of the President.

Lincoln learned something valuable that day after his near-brush with death. He learned how to affirm people as he led them and expressed disagreement with them. He became a statesman. When Richmond was captured by Union troops, Lincoln visited the city – not as a conqueror, but in a gesture of peace. He brought his son Tad along.

Instead of a delegation of generals from the vanquished side, there came to meet him a group of Southerners who were interested in discussing how the war could be brought to a peaceful, speedy conclusion. Lincoln, for his part, was looking for such dialogue. Sadly, Lincoln was assassinated within days of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

Had Lincoln lived, the re-assimilation of the South would undoubtedly have gone far better, for Lincoln had learned the ways of a better leader – one who rode into town on a donkey instead of a great war horse, so long ago.

The Amazing Bible Timeline writes; “Smaller than horses and gifted with cautiousness, that can sometimes be mistaken for stubbornness, donkeys were not usually used during times of war. Zechariah 9:9 prophesied the coming of a king “righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

This prophecy was fulfilled in Matthew 21:1-11 when Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem and it was triumphant because he had done so without bloodshed on the side of the people.” Even in the wake of the most bloody conflict mankind had just witnessed, Lincoln, now the reconciler, wanted to hold out the hope for a peaceful future.