Chapter 41: From Lincoln to Trump
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous
George Orwell famously wrote in 1984 that “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”1 We have seen examples of this dynamic in previous chapters of the series. One of the most well known instances is the claim of Hitler and his followers that Germany lost World War I because it was stabbed in the back by Communists and Jews. This line was useful to the Nazis.
Lies about the past often have real world consequences in the here and now and also in the future. Hitler’s lie led to the Holocaust and World War II - a vivid and dreadful illustration of the potential impact of falsehood.
Like other anti-democratic political figures, Donald Trump lies all the time. Perhaps his most obnoxious untruth is that he won the 2020 election and that the riotous mob that he summoned to desecrate the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was composed of “patriots” who became “hostages” despite the fact that they were convicted through due process of law of the crimes they committed. But let us change the subject from Dishonest Donald to the man known in his time as Honest Abe.
Lincoln’s use of history is dramatically effective in his two greatest speeches: the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural, both of which are engraved on the Lincoln memorial in Washington DC.
The Gettysburg Address is remarkably brief, lasting just over two minutes. Some historians believe that those two minutes changed the nation and the world. The speech has been compared to the funeral oration of Pericles, delivered 2,394 years before it. Lincoln’s address is reproduced below and is worth reading aloud.2
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.3
Lincoln aims to extricate the meaning of the battle from when and where it actually took place. He wants to de-localize it. What is local is divisive. He is striving for the universal meaning of the struggle in a Civil War far more horrible than anyone had expected. How does Lincoln sanctify a three-day battle with 57,000 casualties?
Lincoln begins by using biblical language and appealing directly to history. The goal is to use the present to illuminate the past in order to shed light on the future. “Four score and seven years.” What is of critical importance here is that Lincoln dates the founding of the nation to the Declaration of Independence (written in 1776), rather than to the Constitution (written in 1787). Indeed, the scholar Garry Wills in his remarkable book on the Gettysburg Address asserts that the genius of the speech is to reorient the nation to the Declaration.4
Next, we see a description of birth. “Brought forth,” “new,” “conceived.” Moreover, this new nation was dedicated to a proposition: “all men are created equal.”
The Civil War was a test. It would determine whether the United States “or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.” This is not only about Gettysburg, nor only about the Union. This is about “any nation” as well. This is about a principle of political conduct all over the world.
Note: “[T]hose who here gave their lives that that nation might live.” The thousands and thousands of men who died did not “lose” their lives, they “gave” their lives.5 And for what? So that the nation “might live.” Lincoln is laying the groundwork for what will come at the end of the Address.
We cannot “dedicate,” “consecrate,” or “hallow” this ground. That has already been done “far above our poor power” by the brave men who struggled here.
What, then, must we do?
We must dedicate ourselves “to the unfinished work” which those who fought have “so nobly advanced.” There is yet a “great task remaining before us” and we must take “increased devotion to that cause, for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”
What is this great task?
“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” We have come full circle. From birth, “conceived” . . . to death, “last full measure” . . . to rebirth “a new birth of freedom.”
This sounds like John 12:24 – “Verily, verily I say unto you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” These “honored dead” will die into life if we, “the living,” do what we must. These “dead shall not have died in vain” if we are true to their mission to insure “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
This is what is at stake. The future. The fate of popular government in which all can participate. Because all are created equal.
Right now – today – our nation is in a battle to rescue the Declaration of Independence from the clutches of Donald Trump. In a remarkable essay, Robert Tracinski focuses on the four central transgressions which the Declaration’s authors charge against King George III.6 The authors assert that:
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
What are the four facts which Tracinski highlights? The Declaration’s authors arraign the king -
“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
“For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences. . . .”
A ruler, the authors assert, “whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”7 This is as true of a President as of any other ruler. Tracinski comments: “Donald Trump has treated this as a to-do list. He has imposed tariffs on us at his whim and cut off our trade, while he denies us the benefits of due process and jury trials and is already transporting his victims overseas for imprisonment.
“Trump’s first 100 days are not merely an aggressive political agenda. They are a political revolution. . . .”8
In his eulogy to Lincoln, Senator Charles Sumner said, “In the modesty of his nature, he [Lincoln] said, ‘The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.’ He was mistaken. The world noted at once what he said and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech.”9
The Declaration of Independence was both a unifying document and also a point of contention. As Donald Trump illustrates, it still is. It is up to all of us to use the present moment in order to mobilize the past to assure succeeding generations of a future worthy of our nation.
From Abraham Lincoln to Donald Trump. From the sublime to the ridiculous. Trump’s signature slogan is truer then he realizes. It is indeed time to be great again.
Lincoln said it best. “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”10 It is up to us to save it.
George Orwell, 1984 (Pomodoro Books, e-book) p. 173.
The treatment of the Gettysburg Address in this note relies heavily on Garry Wills’s brilliant book: Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992). And I have used this material in a Harvard Business School Teaching Note: “Abraham Lincoln: The Union and Slavery,” 924-310; May 12, 2024.
https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm There are five copies of the Gettysburg Address with slight variations in the wording.
See Footnote 2 above.
Wills, Lincoln, p. 48.
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/dictator-on-day-100
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/dictator-on-day-100
Charles Sumner, “The Promise of the Declaration of Independence. Eulogy on Abraham Lincoln” (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1865).
https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/congress.htm
I did read the Address out loud and it was, as if, I was reading it for the first time. I choked a bit this time, though, as I was (we are) immersed in the future times of which Lincoln spoke. Thank you for this essay.