Last night we finished the three-episode 2022 History Channel mini-series on Abraham Lincoln. Thank you Jim Bailey for recommending it. In addition to the character acting, the story was narrated by Barack Obama: (former U.S. President); Catherine Clinton (Historian); Christy S. Coleman (Historical Consultant); Allen C. Guelzo (Lincoln Scholar); Harold Holzer (Lincoln Scholar); Caroline Janney (Civil War Historian); Edna Greene Medford (Historian); General Stanley A. McChrystal (Retired U.S. Army General).
There was so much about Lincoln and his struggles and wisdom in reuniting the American union that I had not known. That history was masterfully presented in this series. Most Southern states seceded from the Union in 1861 to preserve their right to own slaves. To reunite the union Lincoln launched a war with the south that eventually killed 620,000 to 700,000 American’s. In the midst of this war Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which declared that all enslaved people in Confederate states still in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free”.
When Robert E Lee surrendered his troops, thus ending the war, Lincoln allowed members of the Confederate Army to return home and to their farms without punishment. In today’s environment it is hard to imagine such generous treatment of one’s enemies. But Lincoln had the wisdom, integrity, and kindness of heart to understand that reuniting the union required mutual acceptance of one’s previous enemies.
Lincoln’s tragic assassination by John Wilkes Booth shortly after his re-election deprived the South of his wisdom during the Reconstruction period that followed the war.
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