Don’t miss the Lincoln Bicentennial National Teach-In on February 12, 2009 at 1:30pm (EST).
House Divided co-director and Dickinson College Professor Matthew Pinsker, Lincoln Bicentennial co-chair Harold Holzer, and Doris Kearns Goodwin (Team of Rivals) will discuss the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln during a live webcast available at this site: http://www.history.com/lincoln
The Lincoln Bicentennial Commission has more information about this event and the participants.
Two questions to consider before the webcast –
What can we learn from Lincoln?
What should we be doing to honor his 200th birthday?
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I felt that all three scholars did a great job responding to the students’ questions and likewise brought up many important questions. It showed what was important to school children throughout the nation.
In response to the question as to what should be done to honor his 200th birthday, I think that there should be a general evaluation of Lincoln to best understand him on his own terms.
I think we need to celebrate the man because he was a great president but we also need to do away with the caricature of “honest Abe.” The media and some historians seem to constantly want to lift Lincoln up as the ideal leader that our society should once again try to find. Thus all the Lincoln-Obama comparisons. By continually casting Lincoln as the perfect leader we deprive ourselves of a honest appraisal of the man and thus perhaps some real lessons for those who now lead us.
One of the most important things we can learn from Lincoln is that while some of his actions were not legal, they had to be done in order to preserve the Union. I think that in modern times this lesson is especially pertinent when dealing with issues of national security.
To honor his birthday, I think people should reflect upon the tough decisions he had to make in order to preserve the country we all, for the most part,enjoy and love.
I found the teach-in both highly educational and thoroughly entertaining. There was nothing quite like seeing the interaction between three premier Lincoln scholars.
Any such workshop does raise the question, ‘What’s the point?’ I think answer is plainly obvious. I think it is difficult to argue anything but that Lincoln is our greatest President. Historians and scholars have consistently ranked him as the top president.
His story is important because it is the epitome of the American experience. It is the story of an poor, uneducated man who willed himself to the nation’s highest office and carried the country through it’s darkest hour.
Obviously, we can’t all be Lincoln. It’s not realistic to even aspire to be Lincoln. But each one of us can work like he did, struggle like he struggled, and achieve all we can.
Of all the many things we can exist from Lincoln, one of the most important is to learn that we can do anything. So give a Lincoln, it’s a Lincoln affair.
I think that we can learn from Lincoln one major thing in life: it is possible to overcome adversity. Whether it was surpassing his humble begins to enter political greatness or preserving the Union despite the conditions, Lincoln managed to take it all on and come out on top. His life is a message for everyone to realize that to endure and overcome is what makes one a man (or woman) and it is for this reason we should honor his 200th birthday.
Something that we can learn from Lincoln is, I believe a basic understanding of what it is to be an active citizen of your town, country and the world. By studying him we can perhaps learn to be better citizens. Basic ideas of preservation of freedom, democracy and his commitment to equality are always emphasized. However, other characteristics such as sincerity, humor, and even trivial things such as his love of theater is what allows him to become more humanized and therefore more compatible with our own experiences. By doing so we can learn to become better active participants in our community.
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