200 years later and still a hero

Another birthday for Mr. Lincoln

Thursday, February 12 will be the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, and I plan to celebrate. With the exception of Bonnie the Beloved of Bob, he is my favorite Republican. The deeper historians dig into his character, the more substance they find. Not that he didn’t make mistakes, or have his weaknesses, but balance those against his shrewd judgment of character. The rowdy sense of humor. Political realism, coupled with principles. The heart to feel outrage, and the courage to do something about it. The wisdom to understand the limits of power, including his own.  A humility that would not take offense that we honor him on our least valuable coin—a pride that would be gratified by his memorial on the Mall.

I have a favorite Lincoln book—Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln—and a favorite Lincoln portrait, The Honest Clerk.   My favorite Lincoln historical artifact is the Logan County Courthouse in Greenfield Village.  During the 1850s it was in Postville, Illinois, where Lincoln was a circuit-riding lawyer.  In 1929, Henry Ford (the first one) bought the building and had it shipped to the outdoor museum he was creating on Greenfield Road in Dearborn.  You can visit the restored courthouse today.  The simple wooden structure tells you most of what you need to know about ordinary people ruling ourselves, a nation under law.

I am deeply grateful for another Lincoln legacy: the Morrill Land Grant Colleges Act to “promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.”  This particular member of the industrial classes received a memorable education at the very first land grant school, Michigan State University (originally Michigan Agricultural College), and spent a lot of time in Morrill Hall.  I think it’s a hopeful, joyous thing that in this bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth we have inaugurated another Senator from Illinois, this one our first African-American President.  I thought it fitting that he took an Inaugural Train to Washington following Lincoln’s route.

You can learn a whole lot more about the official Lincoln Bicentennial from the Hauenstein Center at Grand Valley State.  Wandering around the site I found Brian Flanagan’s Three Heroic Journeys: Abraham Lincoln and the Power of Myth.  It’s a fine piece, and if you have a little time to invest, you could do a lot worse than to spend it here.

Yes, there are holiday treats

OK, enough of Gerry swanning on about Lincoln. What about treats for this holiday? Fear not, I researched those for you, too. I have fond memories of Lincoln Logs. Not the building toys—the cookies and the cake. When I went looking for recipes, I found these:

• Lincoln Log Cookies from Food Down Under. I’ll bake a batch of these on Thursday and show you a picture.
• Lincoln Log Cake at All Recipes
• Lincoln Log Cake at Cooks
• . . . and, er, Lincoln’s Birthday Meat Log from Food Down Under. This was a surprise.  I stumbled over it because it was right next to the cookies. Oddly enough, it sounded pretty good, and I like meatloaf, so . . . I might make this on Thursday, too, but don’t count on it.

Yes, there are Lincoln Bicentennial Souvenirs

• The Postal Service issued a block of four commemmorative stamps yesterday.  (See Lincoln Bicentennial Stamp Images.) 
• I did not know this, but the Lincoln penny was introduced 100 years ago in honor of the Lincoln Centennial.  Four new Lincoln pennies, each with the familiar portrait on the front, but with four different images on the reverse, will be minted this year.  (See 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial One Cent.)  The new pennies will have the same metal content (2.5% copper, the rest zinc) as the pennies we’ve been dumping into penny pots all over Antrim County.  However, the Mint says it will also issue “numismatic one-cent coins in 2009 with the exact metallic content as contained in the 1909 one-cent coin (95% copper, 5% tin and zinc).”  OK, now those will be shiny new pennies, worthy of respect. 
• The Mint goes on, “At the conclusion of the 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial One-Cent Program, the 2010 (and beyond) one-cent coin will feature a reverse design that will be emblematic of President Lincoln’s preservation of the United States of America as a single and united country.”  As far as I know, they haven’t picked a design yet. What do you think it should be?