Michael Burlingame > Quotes

“In 1848, the 39-year-old Lincoln offered some sage advice to his law partner, William H. Herndon, who had complained that he and other young Whigs were being discriminated against by older Whigs. In denying the allegation, Lincoln urged him to avoid thinking of himself as a victim: “The way for a young man to rise, is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you, that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it.”1”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“Lincoln’s personality was the North’s secret weapon in the Civil War, the key variable that spelled the difference between victory and defeat. He was a model of psychological maturity, a fully individuated man who attained a level of consciousness unrivaled in the history of American public life. He managed to be strong-willed without being willful, righteous without being self-righteous, and moral without being moralistic. Most politicians, indeed, most people, are dominated by their own petty egos. They take things personally, try to dominate one another, waste time and energy on feuds and vendettas, project their unacceptable qualities onto others, displace anger and rage, and put the needs of their own clamorous egos above all other considerations. A dramatic exception to this pattern, Lincoln achieved a kind of balance and wholeness that led one psychologist to remark that he had more “psychological honesty” than anyone since Christ.214 If one considers Christ as a psychological paradigm, the analogy is apt. (In 1866, John Hay stated flatly that “Lincoln with all his foibles, is the greatest character since Christ.”)215”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“Wendell Phillips’s namesake, Wendell Garrison, son of William Lloyd Garrison, regretted that Pillsbury, Foster, and Phillips were inclined “to distrust everybody, to endeavor by every ingenious device to find evidence that the government is the enemy of the black man & every officer under it unworthy to be trusted.” He disapproved of their “[c]austic criticism, snap judgments, & wholesale asseveration,” as well as their tendency to have “only eyes for the shadows of the night & do not see the flood of daylight which is driving the blackness away.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“Yet the president was clearly right in stating that the absence of many supporters serving in the military hurt the Republicans. A defeated Ohio state legislator told Lincoln that in his district 80 percent “of the forces Sent into the field are from the Union [i.e., Republican] ranks. … We could not induce the opposition to enlist, except an occasional one to keep up an appearance of Loyalty.”155 Ohio and other states which did not allow troops to vote in the field went Democratic; states like Iowa, which did, went Republican. If all soldiers had voted, and they had cast their ballots in the same fashion that eligible soldiers did, Republicans would have won majorities in every Northern state save New Jersey.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“William Knox’s “Mortality.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“Reinhold Niebuhr expressed in his “serenity prayer”: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“In some men, the painful questioning that often occurs at midlife can lead to despair; in others, it produces stagnation. But it can also be a creative, if turbulent, period during which inner psychological growth takes place and leads to profound maturity. Out of the crucible of midlife introspection can emerge an awareness of one’s own identity and uniqueness that breeds self-confidence and inspires confidence in others. A hallmark of such psychological progress is an ability to overcome egotism, to avoid taking things personally, to accept one’s shortcomings and those of others with equanimity, to let go of things appropriate for youth and accept gladly the advantages and disadvantages of age. People able to meet these challenges successfully radiate a kind of psychological wholeness and rootedness that commands respect.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“Though the danger was great, it would not have justified suspending or canceling the election. In remarking on the bitter canvass, Lincoln added: “The strife of the election is but human-nature practically applied to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this case, must ever recur in similar cases. Human-nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak, and as strong; as silly and as wise; as bad and good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“Lincoln responded with paternal wisdom, urging him not to wallow in jealousy, suspicion, or a feeling of victimhood: “The way for a young man to rise, is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you, that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“At 7:22 A.M., the president finally stopped breathing. “Now he belongs to the ages,” Stanton said tearfully.128”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“he spoke of the present crisis with that solemn, earnest composure, which is a sign of a soul not easily perturbed.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“Tell the Judge that I can’t come—my hands are dirty & I came over to clean them.’ ” When he received this news, Davis dismissed the suit, merely remarking: “Honest Abe.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“Blood, he said, “can not restore blood, and government should not act for revenge.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“Lincoln’s most controversial act was authorizing General Scott to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, thus allowing the government to arrest and detain persons without charges.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“he became a model of psychological maturity, moral clarity, and unimpeachable integrity. His presence and his leadership inspired his contemporaries; his life story can do the same for generations to come.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“sartorial insouciance,”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”193”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“opponents of emancipation lobbied the president. Among them was the Rev. Dr. Byron Sunderland, who told him: “We are full of faith and prayer that you will make a clean sweep for the Right.” With an expression half-sad and half-shrewd, Lincoln replied: “Doctor, it’s very hard sometimes to know what is right! You pray often and honestly, but so do those people across the lines. They pray and all their preachers pray devoutly. You and I do not think them justified in praying for their objects, but they pray earnestly, no doubt! If you and I had our own way, doctor, we would settle this war without bloodshed, but Providence permits blood to be shed. It’s hard to tell what Providence wants of us. Sometimes we, ourselves, are more humane than the Divine Mercy seems to us to be.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“then stop one moment and ask yourself: What is justice in this case? and let that sense of justice be your decision. Law is nothing else but the best reason of wise men applied for ages to the transactions and business of mankind.”208 This approach to the law also characterized his approach to governing, as he repeatedly showed during his presidency.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“There is no hurt among all the human hurts deeper and less understandable than the loss of a parent when one is not yet an adolescent.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“Lincoln, unlike many executives, had no fear of surrounding himself with strong-willed subordinates who might overshadow him. When advised not to appoint Salmon P. Chase to a cabinet post because the Ohioan regarded himself as “a great deal bigger” than the president-elect, Lincoln asked: “Well, do you know of any other men who think they are bigger than I am? I want to put them all in my cabinet.”5 He included every major competitor at the Chicago Convention in his cabinet, a decision that required unusual self-confidence, a quality misunderstood by some, including his assistant personal secretary, John Hay. Deeming modesty “the most fatal and most unsympathetic of vices” and the “bane of genius, the chain-and-ball of enterprise,” Hay argued that it was “absurd to call him a modest man.”6 But Hay was projecting onto his boss his own immodesty. Lincoln was, in fact, both remarkably modest and self-confident, and he had no need to surround himself with sycophants dependent on him for political preferment. Instead he chose men with strong personalities, large egos, and politically significant followings whose support was necessary for the administration’s success.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“In dealing with the controversial Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which outraged many Northerners, Lincoln conceded that when white Southerners “remind us of their constitutional rights,”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“Throughout the country, eyes turned to Ottawa, where the candidates would inaugurate what one Illinois abolitionist regarded as “a contest for the advancement of the kingdom of Heaven or the kingdom of Satan—a contest for an advance or a retrograde in civilization.”263 The New York Times prophetically remarked: “The battle must be close, severe, and doubtful. That it will be well fought is certain, and its results will be both important and memorable.”264”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“Character is destiny, and Lincoln’s remarkable character helped make him not only a successful president but also a model which can be profitably emulated by all. Somehow he managed to be strong-willed without being willful, righteous without being self-righteous, and moral without being moralistic.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“If a cartman’s horse ran away,” the president continued, “all the men and women in the streets thought they could do better than the driver, and so it was with the management of the army.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“Between 1849 and 1854, while sitting on the political sidelines and devoting himself outwardly to the practice of law, Lincoln inwardly was undergoing a profound transformation, successfully wrestling with the challenges of midlife. Little documentation of his inner life survives; he kept no diary, seldom wrote revealing personal letters, and confided few of his innermost thoughts to anyone. Yet he was clearly trying to come to grips with the questions that many men address, consciously or unconsciously, as they pass from the first half of life to the second half during their early forties: What do I really want from life? Is the structure of my life so far truly satisfactory? What kind of legacy do I wish to leave? Have I paid too much attention to the demands of the outer world and conformed too much to its pressures? What do I hope to accomplish with the rest of my days? What do I really care about most? What are my basic beliefs? How have I failed to live up to the dream I formed many years ago? How can I realistically modify that dream? Have I suppressed parts of my personality that now need to be developed? How shall I deal with the uglier aspects of my personality? How have I behaved in a destructive fashion, and how have I in turn been affected by the destructiveness of others? Have I chosen the right career and the right spouse?”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“For the campaign Lincoln prepared a long, masterful speech”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“the fact is that the pioneer in any movement is not generally the best man to carry that movement to a successful issue.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life Volume 2

“The behavior of Douglas, Pierce, Buchanan, and the Supreme Court (presided over by Roger B. Taney) aroused Lincoln’s suspicion. “These things look like the cautious patting and petting a spirited horse, preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall,” he said. Switching the metaphor, he continued: “We can not absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert.” Nevertheless, “when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen—Stephen [Douglas], Franklin [Pierce], Roger [B. Taney], and James [Buchanan], for instance—and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few—not omitting even scaffolding—or, if a single piece be lacking, we can see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared to yet bring such piece in—in such a case, we find it impossible to not believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first lick was struck.”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“The way for a young man to rise, is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you, that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it.”1”
― Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life