Tag Archive for ‘Abraham Lincoln’

A Week of Lincoln

Thursday, February 12, 2009, marks the Bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. To mark the occasion, ChroniclesMagazine.org will post at least one article each day of the week beginning February 9, and concluding with Friday the 13th. Up first on Monday is Daniel Larison’s View from the February issue, “Lincolnism Today: The Long Marriage of Centralized Power and Concentrated Wealth.” Check back regularly for updates, and be sure to leave your comments.

Blago, Bleeps, and—Lincoln?

Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may be right about a lot of things when it comes to former Illinois Gov. George Ryan’s future cellmate—current Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich—but he got one thing very wrong at today’s press conference.

In a nutshell, Governor Blagojevich is being charged with trying to squeeze the Chicago Tribune into firing editorialists who don’t like him and trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder.  After a few weeks of tapped phones and wired pals, Blago managed to give Fitzgerald lots and lots of incriminating comments, many of them laced with f-bombs, including one mother-f-bomb dropped on the name of one President-elect Barack Obama.  Uh-oh.

Lincoln, Diplomacy, and War

In the tumultuous six months between his election in November 1860 and the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, Abraham Lincoln rejected all diplomatic efforts to resolve the deepening crisis peacefully. In the political dispute with the newly constituted, but militarily weak, Confederate States of America, there would be no meaningful negotiations. No compromise would be offered or accepted. Instead, tensions between the two governments would be heightened, and the passions of the American public inflamed, by Lincoln’s provocative and deceptive rhetoric.