***(Editor’s Note: In conjunction with the Inauguration of America’s 44th President, “The Thirsty Quill” is publishing a series entitled “Ranking The Presidents.” There is no ‘exact science’ to these rankings other than personal opinion based on such factors as policy, performance, popularity, perseverance, integrity, and legacy. Aside from those Presidents ranked in the top 25% and the bottom 25%, there is a great deal of ‘wiggle room’ for discretionary placement and movement. These rankings are strictly the personal opinion of the Editor of ‘The Quill,’ and should not be regarded as an academic survey of any type. Debate of these rankings is highly encouraged and appreciated.)***

#3: Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)

“Honest Abe;” “The Great Emancipator;” “The Prairie Lawyer;” “America’s Most Famous President,”…

Whichever title one chooses, it remains quite obvious to all Americans that Lincoln rightfully deserves to be ranked near the top of this list. In fact, many historians consistently rank him #1 overall, while those who don’t typically have him at #’s 2 or 3.

While he may have been born in rural Kentucky (1809), Abraham Lincoln spent most of his life in Illinois. Raised in humble surroundings, Lincoln had very little formal schooling. He did, however, teach himself the fundamentals of reading, writing, and basic math skills.

By the early-1830s, Lincoln had settled down in the quiet outskirts of Springfield, Illinois. There he found work by doing a host of odd jobs, including store clerk, land surveyor, postmaster, and rail-splitter, yet he still found time to study Law. Lincoln was elected to four terms in the Illinois State Legislature beginning in 1832, but decided to try his hand as an attorney as well. It was during this period that people began to recognize Lincoln’s sincerity and impeccable character, things too often missing in most politicians, even back then.

Lincoln strayed from the political scene before being elected to serve as one of Illinois’ Representatives in the U.S. House between 1847-1849. While in Washington, Abe didn’t win too many friends or political admirers due to his questioning of the war with Mexico. After an unsuccessful stint, Lincoln “retired” from politics for good…or so he thought.

By the mid-1850s, a new political party had emerged in the North. The Republican Party, the same one that is still in existence today, was charting a progressive movement toward political prominence in America. The party opposed slavery, and Lincoln saw an opportunity to break free from his previously unsuccessful political career and start anew. Quickly gaining admiration within the party ranks, Lincoln was a formidable opponent to Stephen Douglas for Senator of Illinois in 1858. The two engaged in the now famous “Lincoln-Douglas Debates,” in which Abe laid out the foundation of his own political ideology for all to see. And while he was unsuccessful in that particular race, it was clear that Lincoln aspired to even greater heights than the dusty prairies of the West.

As the nation fell apart prior to (and during) the Election of 1860, so did the base of the Democratic Party. Sectional differences and the threat of Southern secession prompted the nomination of both a Northern and Southern Democratic candidate. This ‘wedge’ in the rival party opened a small window of opportunity for the Republicans to leap through. And while he didn’t even appear on most Southern ballots in 1860, Lincoln was able to claim victory as the first President from the Republican Party.

Yet there was little for anyone to celebrate. For most states in the South, Lincoln’s election marked the beginning of the end. By December of 1860, South Carolina seceded, only to be followed by several other states in the weeks and months that followed. In fact, seven states had broken from the Union by the time Lincoln was inaugurated.

What followed was the darkest period in American history. A Civil War, brought on by the issues of State’s Rights and slavery, tore a gaping hole into the very fabric of our national unity. The establishment of the Confederate States of America divided families as brother fought against brother in the same cornfields where they had played together as children. In the end, over 600,000 Americans lay dead. When put in perspective, more Americans died as a result of the Civil War than in all other American wars…combined.

Lincoln’s primary objective during the war, despite what you may remember from History class, was not to end slavery. It was to preserve the Union, and more importantly, to save the legacy of the nation. Through his gifted and skillful leadership, Lincoln set out to do just that. If he could bring an end to slavery in the process, well, that would be all the better for the future of our nation he believed.

We have often been quick to suggest that Lincoln was one of America’s most popular Presidents. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite to aforementioned History lessons, keep in mind that the United States was at war with itself during his tenure. Nearly half of the nation despised Lincoln, no matter how “pure” his motives may have been. And while he was quite popular in the North, there were the naysayers (known as “Copperheads”) who sympathized with the South and thought that Lincoln had overstepped his Constitutional authority.

Indeed, Lincoln’s tenure had its fair share of controversy. His suspension of habeas corpus (the Constitutional protection from unlawful imprisonment) is a subject that is still highly-debated among Constitutional scholars. In so doing, Lincoln jailed Confederate sympathizers and tried to censor Northern newspapers that spoke out against the war. Furthermore, the issue as to whether or not Lincoln (and the Union) actually had the authority to make war upon the Confederacy for seceding was also of some controversy. While most readily agreed that Southern states had no right to leave the Union, many wondered what power the Union held to prevent it. After all, similar principles were applied to the foundation of our nation when the colonies had “seceded” from Great Britain. Regardless, Lincoln pushed forward, doing everything in his power to save what was left of the tattered nation.

1863 proved to be a very important year for Lincoln, and America. January 1^st brought the Emancipation Proclamation, and with it, the decree that all slaves living in those states that were “in rebellion” against the Union were henceforth free. Lincoln failed to mention the thousands of slaves still residing in states that were “not in rebellion.” While we view this proclamation with great reverence today for helping to free the slaves, it must be noted that the South didn’t pay much attention to Lincoln’s order. It would take a Union victory to end the war, and the injustices of slavery, once and for all.

In November of that year, Lincoln delivered one of the most famous speeches in American history while dedicating a memorial and cemetery at Gettysburg, site of the turning point of the war. Lincoln was not even the keynote speaker that day, but it was his short message (included in the quotes below) that is still remembered and memorized in classrooms across this great land every day. The Gettysburg Address was short and to the point, and despite suffering from smallpox when he delivered it and claiming that “the world will little note nor long remember what we say here,” Lincoln’s words have resonated a million times over since that day.

As the war began to shift in favor of the Union, Lincoln and the Republicans began to doubt that he could even retain the party’s nomination for the 1864 Election. Removing Vice President Hannibal Hamlin from the ticket and replacing him with pro-Union Southerner Andrew Johnson seemed to be the perfect remedy…for the time being. Lincoln won the nomination, and defeated former Union General George McClellan in the election to earn another term. Yet just a month after taking the Oath of Office for the second time, Lincoln was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth on the night of April 14^th, 1865. He would die early the next morning…just five days after the war had ended.

Lincoln’s legacy stretches well beyond his notoriety on the $5 bill, his immortal words, and the steps of his majestic cathedral overlooking the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It resonates, quite loudly, through the very fiber of the American spirit, even today. Lincoln carved a new path toward a better America, one that was freer and a great deal more democratic. His contributions to our nation can never be underestimated, nor can they ever be forgotten. Sadly, the full extent of his legacy may never be known due to the bullet that ended the life of one of our greatest servants…and took with it, a small piece of who we are as Americans today. 

Notable Quotations: “It’s true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”

“Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”

“The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason He makes so many of them.”

“A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.”

“As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer.”

“I have been told I was on the road to Hell…I had no idea it was just a mile down the road with a dome on top of it.”

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty; and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall. But I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

“Such will be the great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they take it by war.”

“I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that (General) Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.”

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”

“We are not enemies, but friends…Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely as they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

“We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth (America).”

“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.”

“If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.” 

The Gettysburg Address

“Fourscore 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. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

To read Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, click here. 

To read Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, click here.

#3: Abraham Lincoln

PRESIDENTIAL RANKINGS & REVIEWS SO FAR: 

#1:

#2:

#3: Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)

#4: Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)

#5: James Madison (1809-1817)

#6: Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)

#7: Andrew Jackson (1829-1837)

#8: Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt (1901-1909)

#9: Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961)

#10: James Monroe (1817-1825)

#11: Harry S. Truman (1945-1953)

#12: John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)

#13: Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

#14: James K. Polk (1845-1849)

#15: Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)

#16: George W. Bush (2001-2009)

#17: John Adams (1797-1801)

#18: William McKinley (1897-1901)

#19: William Taft (1909-1913)

#21/20: Grover Cleveland (1885-89/1893-97)

#22: George H.W. Bush (1989-1993)

#23: Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)

#24: Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)

#25: John Quincy Adams (1825-1829)

#26: Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)

#27: Gerald Ford (1974-1977)

#28: Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)

#29: Zachary Taylor (March 1849-July 1850)

#30: Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)

#31: Chester Arthur (1881-1885)

#32: Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)

#33: John Tyler (1841-1845)

#34: Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)

#35: Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)

#36: Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)

#37: James Buchanan (1857-1861)

#38: Richard Nixon (1969-1974)

#39: Bill Clinton (1993-2001)

#40: Warren Harding (March 1921-August 1923)

#41: Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)

#42*: James Garfield (March 1881-September 1881)

#43*: William Henry Harrison (March 1841-April 1841)