- “Lincoln and the Power of Silence,” Stamford Advocate, February 12, 2018
Known for their speaking abilities, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill often knew when and why to be quiet. “Solomon says there is ‘a time to keep silence,” Presidentelect Lincoln told the Indiana Legislature in February 1861. - “Lincoln & Churchill: Action This Day,” Putnam County News & Record, February 6, 2018
“Let this be done without fail,” wrote Prime Minister Winston Churchill in June 1940 in a memo advocating “investigating radio methods likely to be used against us by the enemy in the air or elsewhere.” - “Declaration of Independence,” Stamford Advocate, July 4, 2017
“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,” President Abraham Lincoln declared at Gettysburg on November 1863. - “Memorial Day and Our Soldier Heroes,” Stamford Advocate, May 28, 2017
Every day was Memorial Day for President Lincoln during the Civil War. “Men…, by fighting our battles, bear the chief burthen of saving our country” the President wrote in July 1863.1 They would give the last full measure for their beloved country. The President was consistent in giving credit for victory to the soldiers who fought for the Union, and to the officers who led them. - “Stand Firm: Lincoln’s Advice to a Nurse, the Union and Himself,” The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2017
“Large crowds have gathered in the streets. The pervading spirit among the masses is resistance to Lincoln’s administration, and everywhere that determination is manifest.” - “Jefferson’s Declaration,” Putnam County News & Recorder, June 29, 2016
Thomas Jefferson was a student of the classics, science, and history. The Virginia planter and lawyer was a scholar, a thinker, a writer but he was no speaker. He was the man to whom colleagues went when they needed an eloquent pen and a brain that understood the best political scholarship of the time. - “Lincoln and Churchill: Preparation for Greatness,” Putnam County News & Recorder, February 12, 2016
“If a man will stand up and assert, and repeat and reassert, that two and two do not make four, I know nothing in the power of argument that can stop him,” declared Abraham Lincoln at Peoria on October 16, 1854. In this case, he implied that Senator Stephen Douglas, his political adversary, made irrational arguments on the subject of slavery. - “Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, Wartime Leaders,” National Review, February 12, 2016
In his July 4 message to Congress in 1861, President Lincoln wrote that the secession crisis “forces us to ask: ‘Is there, in allrepublics, this inherent and fatal weakness?’ Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, ortoo weak to maintain its own existence?” - “Lehrman oped: Lincoln and Churchill – Statesmen of War,” Greenwich Time, February 12, 2016
“We cannot escape history,” President Lincoln declared in his Second Annual Message to Congress in December 1862. “We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.” - “Lehrman: American tradition has Russian inspiration,” Stamford Advocate, July 2, 2015
Fireworks have long been part of the Independence Day celebrations in the United States. The Continental Congress specifically authorized a fireworks display for July 4, 1777 — the first anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. - “Lewis Lehrman: The April death of two presidents,” Stamford Advocate, April 14, 2015
At Hyde Park, New York, on April 15, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was laid to rest at his beloved family home. On the very same day 80 years earlier in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln breathed his last in a rooming house across the street from Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. - “The Root of the Matter,” Putnam County News & Recorder, February 12, 2015
Winston Churchill wrote and spoke millions of words, but he admired those who could quickly get to the essence of an argument. He once said: “Anything worthwhile can be put on one side of a page.” - “Lincoln’s Patience and Ambition,” Harrisburg Patriot News, February 12, 2015
When 23 year old Abraham Lincoln won election as his militia company captain in the Black Hawk War, the new officer told a friend: “I’ll be damned, Bill, but I’ve beat him!” Preparing to run for president in 1860, Lincoln wrote that he had “not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction” as his election as militia captain. - “Lehrman: The danger of underestimating Lincoln,” Stamford Advocate, February 11, 2015
Abraham Lincoln “saw through other men who thought all the while they were instructing or enlightening him, with a sort of dry, amused patience,” wrote Harriet Beecher Stowe, the novelist who wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” - “Lehrman: U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James,” Greenwich Time, December 4, 2014
On Dec. 8, 1941, U.S. Ambassador John “Gil” Winant dined with Prime Minister Winston Churchill at Chequers. Uncharacteristically, Churchill tuned the radio to the 9 p.m. BBC news. Together, they heard a vague report of a Japanese attack. - “July 4th, The Declaration of Independence With a Russian Inspiration,” Greenwich Time and Stamford Advocate, July 4, 2015
Fireworks have long been part of the Independence Day celebrations in the United States. The Continental Congress specifically authorized a fireworks display for July 4, 1777 the first anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. - “The Civil War: A People’s Contest,” Putnam County News & Recorder, July 4, 2015
On July 4, 1861, the U.S. Congress convened in special session. Its first act was to receive a “Special Message” from the President about the onset of the Civil War. For several weeks, President Lincoln had been hard at work summarizing the events following his inauguration on March 4. - “Lincoln’s fears for the fate of the Declaration,” Stamford Advocate, July 4, 2014
Young Robert Todd Lincoln was a practical young man. At boarding school in May 1860, the 16yearold was informed that his father had won the Republican presidential nomination. Robert reportedly replied “Good! I will write home for a check before he spends all of his money in the campaign.” - “On Life, Liberty and Lincoln,” Greenwich Time, July 3, 2014
Greenwich resident Lewis “Lew” Lehrman is an investment banker and an active advocate of the ongoing study of American History. - “Lincoln, Churchill and Dday,” Stamford Advocate, June 6, 2014
President Abraham Lincoln, a student of Shakespeare’s tragedies and histories, surely could have understood, in the overtures of Henry V, what transpired 80 years later in the invasion of Normandy. King Harry’s CrispinCrispian Day speech before the Battle of Agincourt evoked the momentous drama unfolding on the Normandy beaches, DDay 1944. - “Lincoln’s Masterful Pen,” Greenwich Time, May 23, 2014
The cowinner of the 24th Lincoln Prize, Professor Martin Johnson, has written a masterpiece of modern scholarship. Clearly written and rigorously argued, his book, “Writing the Gettysburg Address,” is a compelling story, too. The narrative is easily accessible to a vast readership interested in Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address. - “Churchill and Lincoln: Glow Worms Walking a Tightrope,” Greenwich Time, February 14, 2014
As young men, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill found themselves awkward among women. For much of his life, Churchill”s female confidante, in addition to his wife, was Violet Bonham Carter. - “Churchill and Lincoln: Men of Principle; Men of Ideas,” Putnam County News & Recorder, February 12, 2014
In February 1943, now 68 years of age, Winston Churchill flew to Algiers after meetings in Turkey and Egypt. He slept in a rigged up bunk in the hold of his very cold airplane there were none of the comforts of Air Force One. A top British general heard Churchill’s valet tell the Prime Minister: “You are sitting on your hot water bottle. That isn’t at all a good idea.” - “Lincoln and Churchill at War,” Stamford Advocate, November 8, 2013
As warlords, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill accepted the duty, for cause and country, to send young men to their death. In bloody conflicts separated by eight score years, both commanders in chief were especially sensitive to the death of their fighting men familiar, too, with the grief of their family and friends. - “Lincoln at Cooper Union,” The Putnam County News and Recorder, February 13, 2013
Abraham Lincoln loved liberty. He said he had always hated slavery. In his Cooper Union speech of February 27, 1860, Abraham Lincoln challenged the arguments being made by Southern slaveholders in defense of the institution and in response to the Republican Party. - “President Lincoln and His Stories,” Greenwich Time, February 12, 2013
Alexander H. Stephens, who became vice president of the Confederacy, met Lincoln in Congress in December 1847. Stephens recalled that Lincoln, “abounded in anecdotes; he illustrated everything that he was talking or speaking about by an anecdote; his anecdotes were always exceedingly apt and pointed, and socially he always kept his company in a roar of laughter.” - “Reflections on Lincoln & Freedom,” The Putnam County News and Recorder, February 6, 2013
President Abraham Lincoln’s hand was shaking. New Year’s Day festivities on January 1, 1863 began at 11 A.M. The hundreds of hands Lincoln shook at the White House left the nation’s chief executive with a tremor he could not afford. - “Inspiration on the Long Road to Ending Slavery,” Greenwich Time, January 2, 2013
On January 1, 1808, the promise of the American Founders was fulfilled. Importation of African slaves into America was banned. Over a year earlier, on December 2, 1806, President Thomas Jefferson had requested that Congress end the slave trade. - “The Patriotism of Abraham Lincoln,” Stamford Advocate, February 12, 2011
Presidentelect Lincoln made very few public remarks before departing Springfield, Ill., for Washington for his inauguration in 1861. On Nov. 20, 1860, however, Lincoln addressed some very brief comments to supporters in Springfield. - “Churchill and Lincoln Never give up,” Connecticut Post, October 24, 2010
“Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days.”
Thus spoke Winston Churchill to the students of Harrow School on October 29, 1941. The British prime minister visited the school, and made this speech, fewer than six weeks before the United States would enter World War II. - “Lincoln and liberty,” New York Post, July 5, 2010
“I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence,” Abraham Lincoln told a crowd in front of Independence Hall on the morning of Feb. 22, 1861. - “Lehrman: Lincoln, a journalist from Connecticut and a horse,” Connecticut Post, May 20, 2010
Private Henry E. Wing was mustered out of the Union army on crutches. The Connecticut native had been badly wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg of December 1862. Wing, who had abandoned the study of law earlier in the year to fight in the Civil War, returned home to Litchfield to recuperate with his family. - “Lincoln, Abolition and Economic Freedom,” Education Update, Volume XV, No. 3, February 1, 2010
To read carefully Lincoln’s parable of the ant suggests a lost truth: during most of his political career Lincoln focused not on antislavery but on economic policy. Yet antislavery and economic policy, in his worldview, were tightly linked. - “For back to school, lessons of a self-educated president,” Stamford Advocate, September 3, 2009
Abraham Lincoln seldom got the chance to go to school. He received fewer than 12 months of schooling. Congressman Lincoln, it was reported, once said that a Georgia colleague was “an eloquent man, and a man of learning; so far as he could judge of learning, not being learned himself.” - “Abraham Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence,” Connecticut Post, July 3, 2009
“I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it,” asked Abraham Lincoln in July 1858, “where will it stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? - “1809-2009: A New Birth of Freedom,” Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial, April 29, 2009
“The ant, who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest, will furiously defend the fruit of his labor against whatever robber assails him.” This parable expressed Abraham Lincoln’s belief in the dignity of human labor. The right to the fruit of one’s labor was so fundamental that “all feel and understand it, even down to brutes and creeping insect,” wrote Lincoln. - “Black Friday: Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth,” Greenwich Time, April 10, 2009
President Abraham Lincoln had just given the final speech of his life. Two days earlier, Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Confederate Army at Appomattox. But in Lincoln’s speech, from the second floor window of the White House, the president did not dwell on victory. - “Douglass, Lincoln had historic relationship,” Stamford Advocate March 3, 2009
Frederick Douglass, the great black abolitionist, did not like to be told no. On March 4, 1865, he lined up at the White House to greet President Abraham Lincoln after his second inauguration. No African American would go with him. - “In Lincoln’s Hand His Original Manuscripts,” Publication of the Library of Congress, March 2009
William Wilberforce could not be indifferent to slavery. For twenty years, the wealthy heir to a merchant fortune worked unceasingly to end slavery in the British Empire. His labor bore fruit when Parliament acted in 1807 to abolish the slave trade. - “Lincoln liked Confederate Vice President Unlikely Friend,” Montgomery Advertiser, February 16, 2009
On Feb. 18 1861, the new leaders of the Confederacy were inaugurated in Montgomery. A wizened, prickly Alexander H. Stephens and a lean, proud Jefferson Davis took office as vice president and president of the Confederacy. - “Future President Pressed Antislavery Theme In 1860 Visit,” Hartford Courant, February 15, 2009
In the week after Abraham Lincoln’s speech at Cooper Union in New York on Feb. 27, 1860, the future president passed through Connecticut on the way to visit his son at Exeter, N.H. Lincoln agreed to stop in Hartford on his return - “State brought out the best in Lincoln,” The Carlisle Sentinel, February 12, 2009
Abraham Lincoln did not spend much time in Pennsylvania. His ancestors had already done that; grandfather Abraham Lincoln was born here in 1744. - “Lincoln’s man from Connecticut,” Greenwich Time, February 11, 2009
“Father Neptune” was Connecticut’s representative in President Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet. Gideon Welles was an uptight, selfrighteous newspaper editor who was the compromise choice to represent New England perhaps, Welles thought, as postmaster general. - “Holding the president’s hat,” Stamford Advocate, January 20, 2009
When in 1861 Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president, a longtime rival from Illinois held his hat. For nearly a quarter century, Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas had opposed each other in politics. On three occasions 1839, 1854 and 1858 they had squared off in debates that helped define the issues of economics and slavery that faced the nation. - “Man of Springfield Found Inspiration From Monticello,” Richmond Times Dispatch, December 7, 2008
Barack Obama will not be the first American president to find his political model in a predecessor from a different political party. Even after he became a Republican in 1856, Abraham Lincoln described himself as an “old line Whig.” But the Whig Party had elected only two presidents, both of whom soon died in office. - “A Tall Order” Harrisburg Patriot News, November 23, 2008
Barack Obama is hardly the first president to take office at a time of national crisis. No one confronted a greater crisis than Abraham Lincoln, who watched the South secede in the four months between his election in 1860 and his inauguration on March 4, 1861. - “A House Divided Against Itself,” New York Sun, April 22, 2008
On April 23, 1860, 148 years ago, the Democratic National Convention opened in Charleston, S.C. There, the Democratic Party disintegrated over the possible nomination of Stephen Douglas, a senator from Illinois. - “Lincoln of Illinois,” The New York Sun, February 12, 2008
In 1860, two of the four candidates for president of the United States came from Illinois. The Republican, Abraham Lincoln, stopped all public communication in March after completing a tour through New York and New England. His Illinois Democratic opponent, Stephen A. Douglas, spoke out extensively. - “Lincoln in New York,” The New York Sun, February 12, 2007
The leading Republican candidate for President in 1860 was Senator Seward of New York, distinguished by decades of experience in state and national government. But there was another candidate, relatively unknown nationally, but a recognized antislavery lawyer from Illinois. Some of his opponents delighted in calling Abraham Lincoln a “black Republican”. - “Lincoln Prize 2004: “To give all a chance”,” Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, April 14, 2004
To read carefully the Lincoln economic parable of the ant reprinted here suggests a lost truth about our sixteenth president: during most of Abraham Lincoln’s political career he focused not on antislavery but on economic policy. Yet antislavery and economic policy, in his worldview, were tightly linked. As Lincoln explained, slavery was grounded in coercion. - “The Party of Lincoln,” Weekly Standard, February 16, 2004
To reassess Abraham Lincoln on his 195th birthday is to learn a lost truth: During much of his political career, Lincoln focused not on the moral issues of slavery but on economic policy. Yet slavery and economic policy were tightly linked in his worldview. - “Abraham Lincoln,” Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, January 27, 2004
To study Abraham Lincoln is to learn a lost truth about our first Republican president. And it is this… During most of Abraham Lincoln’s political career he focused not on antislavery but on economic policy. Antislavery and economic policy, in his worldview, were tightly linked. - “Lincoln and War Leadership,” Greenwich Time, February 17, 2003
“In a great national crisis, like ours, unanimity of action among those seeking a common end is very desirable — almost indispensable… We are gaining strength, and may, if need be, maintain the contest indefinitely.” Lincoln’s last message to Congress, Dec. 6, 1864. - “Lincoln and the Civil War,” Greenwich Time, February 12, 2002
In his annual message to Congress in 1862, Abraham Lincoln wrote, “In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not be responsible through time and eternity.” - “Lincoln: Master of Man”, Greenwich Time, February 19, 2001
One of the keys to Abraham Lincoln’s character was his discipline. In the last two decades of his life, it is difficult to find occasions when Mr. Lincoln did not carefully monitor his public comments or gauge their public impact. - “Lincoln: Man of Honor,” Greenwich Time, February 15, 1999
He was called “Honest Abe” for a reason, but he detested the nickname. None of his friends called him that to his face. But in a profession full of dissimulation, he came by the title honorably. It fit. As his wife once wrote, “Poor Mr. L. is almost a monomaniac on the subject of honesty.” - “Lincoln: The Self Made Man,” Greenwich Time, February 20, 1995
Pity poor Abraham Lincoln. Behind the legend, there was certainly much to lament. Lincoln’s grandfather had been killed by Indians while tilling his field; his father had nearly been kidnapped in the same attack. Lincoln himself was born 186 years ago this month in a rustic Kentucky log cabin—surely substandard housing by anyone’s definition. - “Abraham Lincoln: An American for All Time,” Wall Street Journal, February 10, 1995
Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday we celebrate on Sunday, is generally remembered for winning the Civil War and freeing the slaves. He should be. But the great lost truth about our 16th president is that during most of his political career he focused, not on slavery, but on a policy for economic growth and equal opportunity for the new nation.