Reply #15: Earlier today, shockingelk quoted Lincoln on Presidents and war

[DeepModem Mom]

and I responded, along the lines you're thinking --

Lincoln understood the burden of war; I remember reading a historian's view that he carried the whole burden of the Civil War on his own shoulders. When you look at pictures, you see it. And his eloquence, on the subject of going to war, in the Second Inaugural:

"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it-- all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war-- seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came."

Oh, man -- that brings tears to my eyes, and reminds me why I still love this country. I hope we make it through the national crisis we face now --