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because his personality encompassed that of so many others: they were
lines, he a cube. But it also blinds later generations to the complexity of
Lincoln's character and deeds by foreclosing the possibility of making the
most apt comparisons. By making such comparisons in class, we found
that what Lincoln gains in breadth and complexity he also loses, at times,
in sharpness and force. Lincoln hated slavery, but not with the kind of pas–
sion and heat that could explode in the dazzling fulminations of a Douglass
or Sumner. He loved poetry, and dabbled in it, but his speeches rise only at
moments (wonderful moments!) to the poetic beauty that Longfellow or
Whitman possessed in superabundance. He excelled at telling stories, but
could he rival the sentiment or expression of Harriet Beecher Stowe? His
powers of analysis, deductive reasoning, and logical exposition rightly won
him fame, but many competent observers would say that his own consti–
tutional arguments-his highest legal training, after all, consisted of read–
ing parts of Blackstone, an author that Thomas Jefferson detested-could
not stand up to the barrage of such antagonists as Davis or Stephens, even
as his battalions crushed theirs on the battlefield. Of course, this is not to
say that Lincoln was a worse man than any of these others. But if one truly
wishes to study the humanities, one should not squint, looking only for
"greatness"; one should eagerly examine the many different forms of
human goodness-and badness. For example, in my syllabus, I took it as
a sufficient reason for assigning Lord Charnwood's biography of Lincoln
to make sure my students saw the following masterful snapshot of pusilla–
nimity (Charnwood refers here to Jefferson Davis's memoirs, which in part
describe Davis's flight at the end of the war):
Amongst other things he tells how when they heard the news of
Lincoln's murder some troops cheered, but he was truly sorry for
the reason that Andrew Johnson was more hostile to the cause than
Lincoln. It is disappointing to think, of one who played a memo–
rable part in history with much determination, that in this reminis–
cence he sized his stature as a man fairly accurately.
Lincoln's life and writings were richer, perhaps, than those of any
contemporary American; but to do justice to Lincoln one should not
assume he possessed all the virtues in their extremes.
As mentioned, much scholarly attention today focuses on Lincoln's
political deliberations, especially his thoughts on the Constitution,
searching for his prudence or lack of prudence. In contrast, most people
outside academia remember Lincoln quite simply as a lover of his fellow
man and a defender of equality, as the Great Emancipator. To grasp Lin-
