\n\tTemple University historian Gregory Urwin, in his contribution to Lincoln and Leadership<\/i> (Fordham University Press), observes: "recent surveys reveal that
\n\tmost American historians continue to rate Abraham Lincoln as the country's best president. This subjective judgment hinges primarily on Lincoln's
\n\tperformance as commander in chief in the Civil War, in which he surmounted a host of daunting challenges and succeeding in both preserving the Union and
\n\tdestroying slavery." Urwin refers to Lincoln as "the greatest war president in American history. . . . He bore the burden of leading his people through an
\n\tagonizing ordeal, and he attempted to bind the nation's wounds even before the guns fell silent."\n<\/p>\n
\n\tLincoln also displayed nobility of mind, spirit, and character by his courageous opposition to the extension of slavery and to the United States Supreme
\n\tCourt's Dred Scott<\/i> ruling, that denied equal rights and personhood to Black people. Benjamin Tyree, a Washington, D.C., journalist, says Lincoln firmly
\n\tbelieved in the statement that "all men are created equal," and that "he referred to this cornerstone of the Declaration of Independence as the central
\n\tidea of the nation, and a part of its actual law as well as its emotional history. On this, finally, hung the moral justification of the Union's crusade to
\n\tforce the South back into the Union, together with the concept of civic virtue embodied in the Union and in its Constitution." He adds that "from the
\n\tbeginning, Lincoln was determined to fight the attempt, which was built upon the foundation of human rights."\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAccording to journalist Rogert Shogan, author of The Double-edged Sword: How Character Makes and Ruins Presidents, from Washington to Clinton<\/i> (Westview
\n\tPress), President Lincoln's greatest test of character involved the explosive issue of slavery. For Lincoln, slavery was a vicious and obscene violation of
\n\tGod-given human rights and of the proposition of our founders that "all men are created equal." And that is why Lincoln commanded the North to wage war
\n\twith the South, and why he also issued his Emancipation Proclamation.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tMr. Shogan rightly credits Lincoln's nobility of character for his courageous opposition to slavery; he observes: "to a degree, this was . . . a journey of
\n\tthe mind. But it also represented a development of character without which Lincoln's intellect could not have made the leap from defense of the past to
\n\tstaking out a new vision for the Republic, which would become the legacy of his character to his country and his successors."\n<\/p>\n
\n\tCertainly we desperately need today many more men and women of Abraham Lincoln's nobility of mind, spirit, and character.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Temple University historian Gregory Urwin, in his contribution to Lincoln and Leadership (Fordham University Press), observes: "recent surveys reveal that most American historians continue to rate Abraham Lincoln as the country's best president. This subjective judgment hinges primarily on Lincoln's performance as commander in chief in the Civil War, in which he surmounted a host<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[198],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-5406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-january-february-2013","tag-january-february-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}