Comments on: Getting Right With Lincoln or Getting Lincoln Right

By: Lincoln Stuff « Bull Runnings

Lincoln Stuff « Bull Runnings — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:47:42 +0000

[...] 9 03 2009 I left a comment on this post on Civil War Memory, which prompted a comment on this post here, and as a result I’ve found [...]

By: The Abraham Lincoln Observer

The Abraham Lincoln Observer — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:34:33 +0000

Actually, if you read all the way to the end of Donald’s article linked above (written in 1956), he quotes U.S. Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois as saying that the first task of a politician is “to get right with … Lincoln.”

Though an instinctively conservative Republican, Dirksen worked closely with President Lyndon Johnson on some of the groundbreaking civil rights legislation of the 1960s, so perhaps it’s fair to say Ev got right with Abe on a philosophical, as well as political, level. But at any rate, it does seem clear that Dirksen, not Donald, deserves credit for coining the basic phrase “getting right with Lincoln.”

As a newbie to cwmemory and related sites, I’m learning a lot from the discussions here. So it’s a privilege to find a subject where I feel qualified to comment, even if it is just a mildly off-topic quibble. Thanks for the education.

By: Kevin Levin

Kevin Levin — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:31:10 +0000

Rhapsody,

I love the idea of opening up with our earliest memories as a starting point to say the extent to which they continue to shape our understanding. Thanks for the comment.

By: rhapsodyinbooks

rhapsodyinbooks — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:11:20 +0000

One early experience most people have had is going to museums (like the Civil War Museum in Richmond which manages to obliterate Lincoln pretty well). I don’t know if you have read Roger Bromley’s book, “Lost Narratives: Popular Fictions, Politics and Recent History” (Routledge: 1988), but he has some great discussions about museums – what they include and what they don’t; how the displays are structured and labeled (cf recent article in Washington Post about the label under W’s portrait in the National Portrait Gallery and of course the flap about labeling an Enola Gay exhibit at the Air & Space Museum); etc. Relatedly, I was absolutely amazed at the role played by women, as described by David Blight in “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” regarding their efforts to influence memory via statuary and celebrations/rites. These are also cultural memes that get embedded early. I think it would be of great interest to hear about all the early memories of your students and how it affected their later attitudes.

By: Harry

Harry — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:23:16 +0000

Kevin,

Lest anyone think I’m laying claim to “Getting Right with Lincoln”, I’m not: the link in my post is to David Donald’s article from the ’50′s.

By: Kevin Levin

Kevin Levin — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:11:30 +0000

Thanks for the link, Harry. You reminded me that I didn’t get back to revising the title of my post.

By: Harry

Harry — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:03:07 +0000

Kevin,

Maybe you can find some guidance in the article that coined the phrase. See the link in the first sentence of my post here:

http://bullrunnings.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/getting-right-with-lincoln-part-i/

Bias is human nature and historians are, for better or worse, human. Therefore, if one tends to “like” FDR (or “hate” Hitler), it affects how one assesses some of the things he did. I’ve heard this referred to as “situational constitutionality” by a talking head historian who very lamely defended his own “ends justify the means” analysis.