This is a construction/graphic I created in honor of Honest Abe last year. The numbers are inaccurate (he’d be a year older now), but the sentiment is the same.
Honest Abe
I don’t know what your personal opinion of President Lincoln might happen to be, but his legend stands as an archetype of integrity in politics. I’m pretty into integrity as a concept and a practice, so I’m taking this day to celebrate the notion of an honest president.
Maybe we can all try to be as honest as possible for today and see how well we fare.
He’s ok. He was only moderately anti-slavery (and the institution would have ended anyway, peacefully, as it did in every other developed nation), and he caused the death of what, 600,000 men or so in order to “save the Union” (which was initially supposed to be a voluntary federation of sovereign states, not a prison sentence for every state that joined)…..but I believe he did what he thought was best.
I don’t know if it’s fair to say that Lincoln “caused” the casualties of the Civil War. As Commander in Chief of the US Army, he did make decisions and orders which could be said to have resulted in more or fewer lives lost, but so did a lot of other folks.
He may not have been the best president America ever had. I wasn’t there, so it’s tough to make that call. But Abe does stand (at least in the lore of Americana) as an icon of integrity, which is something a lot of current elected officials could take a lesson or two in.
Thanks for the comment.
Nice. Abe has been a big inspiration over the past year. I’ve grown a respectable beard and striven for integrity. I may not be the leader off my country, but I often lead my friends to places with cheap beer.
Nice to hear from you, Brian. Take care.
Seeing this took me back, Andy. A couple of weeks ago one of the new tutors was looking through a pile of papers and found a comic that you made (the one where the dad walks in randomly and says, “I once caught a fish that was THIS BIG!”). All of the kids passed it around and had a good laugh.