land of lincoln

Lest we forget, he came to Washington from Illinois. Even though we think of him as the American Jesus, he had a little Mayor Daley in him too.

Sarah Vowell writing about, er, Abraham Lincoln and his Gettysburgh Address in The Partly Cloudy Patriot.

I picked up Vowell's book hard on the heels of reading Garry Wills' Two Speeches on Race in the 1 May 2008 issue of the New York Review of Books, in which Wills favorably compares Obama's speech on race and Lincoln's 1860 Cooper Union speech in which Lincoln addressed his association with John Brown and commented on the Dred Scott Decision. Says Wills:

What is of lasting interest is their similar strategy for meeting the charge of extremism.

Both argued against the politics of fear. Neither denied the darker aspects of our history, yet they held out hope for what Lincoln called here the better 'lights of current experience' -- what he would later call the 'better angels of our nature.'

Each looked for larger patterns under the surface bitternesses of their day. Each forged a moral position that rose above the occasions for their speaking.

Apologies for the lack of linkage & the funky formatting -- queuing this up en route to Vegas. Will update soon.

Update: Linked.