Abraham Lincoln

Today, marks the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President under the U.S. Constitution. I find Lincoln to be a immense paradox. The trials of his private life and the trials of his public life.

His brilliance in the Lincoln-Douglas debates and his staunch view that slavery was wrong.

Yet, I'm convinced that his going to war against the seccessionist Southern states "in order to preserve the Union" was unconstitutional.

Had Lincoln not finally placed the war on the higher moral plane of abolishing slavery by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, I suspect he may have gone down in history far less favorably.

I also wonder if he had lived what Reconstruction would have looked like and if the racial history in the United States would have been different. In short, if our wounds would have healed.

The following links provide some insights into Lincoln's life and times.

Biography of Lincoln

Northern Illinois University Lincoln Digitization Project. Contains interesting facts about Lincoln and some of his writings.

Library of Congress' Lincoln Collection
Library of Congress Exhibition on The Gettysburg Address
Lincoln Memorial
Civil War images
Emancipation Proclamation