Lincoln's Ways to Calm Down and Be Positive

Photo: Allan Pinkerton, Lincoln, and Major General John A. McClernand at the Antietam Battlefield, from the massive Library of Congress Collection, at this link: http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/brady.html

After I saw Spielberg's Lincoln, I bought Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals.  This is a truly impressive and eye-opening chronicle of Lincoln's early years, his early business, his early law firm--and his early defeats when running for public office.  It is an incredibly dense book, as tons of things happen, or are learned, seemingly on every page.  This is why I'm just on page 548 after quite awhile reading it.  I'm a very fast reader, but there's too much here--and too much to be impressed by.  I recommend the book very highly, and I'll post a review when I'm done with it.

One of the facets of Lincoln's personality that I find incredible was his ability to think first and act second.  A man with tons of early defeats, at business, at law, and at running for public office, and a man who had to lead the country through the Civil War (it's clear to me now that the Civil War would have happened even if Lincoln had never been born), and a man who lost three sons while they were all very young, and who had to deal with a depressive (possibly manic-depressive) wife, and possibly his own depression: well, if anyone had a right to be angry and depressed, it was this man.  But this book makes it clear that, despite some very depressive times (Who wouldn't be somber, and look it, after going through all this?), Lincoln had a way of staying emotionally buoyant, of somehow not letting his sadness or frustration effect his presidential decisions.  His cabinet (except for Chase) very obviously loved him, and that says a lot, as they were a [see title].  So what was it about his personality that they all loved, that they were all impressed by?

1.  When angry at one of his generals--which he frequently had occasion to be, especially at McClellan, Meade, Burnside and Hooker--he wrote a letter to him, put it aside, and either never mailed it, or had one of his team of rivals look at it to edit it and tone it down.  This is one of the reasons he wanted people who would frequently disagree with him, for moments such as those.

So: Don't act out in anger or in sadness.  And if you must act at that moment, defer to your assistants and friends.

2.  When sad, he went to Seward's house, or to the telegraph office at the White House, or to the office / bedroom of his assistants in the White House--even at three in the morning.  In other words, when sad, he sought out his friends, and he relaxed with them and spoke with them, often telling funny stories that he was famous for.  (I never would have known that without the movie and book; my impression of him was that he was a serious, somber and sad man, always.  I'll bet this was everyone's common perception of him.  Turns out, we would all be wrong.  And, he didn't have a deep, sonorous voice.  I'm actually shocked by that.)  One caveat: the fact that he was the President certainly helped with this behavior.  One does not tell the President of the United States to stop telling amusing anecdotes, or to stop reading Shakespeare or the era's funnymen, while sitting at the edge of your bed, and to get the hell out of your room, at three in the morning.

So: When sad or lonely, seek out friends.  At any time of day.  True friends will tell you to call them if you need them, at any time.  And true friends will mean it.

3.  When sad, he left the company of sad people.  He did the best he could with his wife, but he did not seek her out when he was sad, angry or frustrated.  Why?  Because she wouldn't have been able to help him.  And he did not visit Chase, which upset him, but instead went to see Seward, who was a much more entertaining and pleasant person.

So: Do not spend a lot of time with sad, negative or angry curmudgeons.  They will only bring you down.

These are three very simple, very logical things, but they are amazingly hard to do, especially the first one.  But Lincoln clearly knew he was a person prone to sadness and misery, and he took steps to do something about it, and to not let this part of his personality, or the severely depressing parts of his life, to control him.

We should all be so wise.

Seward's Successful Defense of an Insane Black Man

Photo: William Seward, from his own Wikipedia page

After watching Spielberg's Lincoln, I bought the book much of the movie is based on, Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  Because I'm nerdy like that.  On page 85 is a true account of William Seward's defense of William Freeman, a former slave (last name ironically notwithstanding) who, after years of extreme mistreatment in jail, was released and almost immediately broke into the home of a rich white man--a friend of Seward's, in fact--and killed him, his pregnant wife, their little child, and his wife's mother.  This was undisputed during the whole trial.

The amazing thing about the trial is that, after Freeman was found guilty of the murders, Seward chose to defend him, for free, during the penalty phase.  Long a supporter of prison reform and reform for the mentally ill--and long an abolitionist--Seward realized that Freeman, who was deaf, dumb, and, according to Seward himself, an "imbecile" and a "maniac"--committed those crimes because of his maltreatment in jail for a crime that, it turned out, he never actually did to begin with.  (This case reminds me a bit of Murder in the First, an 80s movie with Christian Slater and Kevin Bacon, and Gary Oldman as a sadistic warden).

And so Seward, who had already served twice as Governor of New York, and who would soon run for president and lose the nomination to Lincoln (partly because of this case), defended him, this black man, who in March of 1846 wiped out a family of Seward's friends.  I found, free on Google Books, Seward's entire closing argument for the case--all thirty-one pages of it.  (!!!)  Full title: Argument of William H. Seward, in defense of William Freeman, on his trial.  In it is some fantastic stuff, including--

--Seward's insistence that Freeman belonged in an asylum, not "on the scaffold," because he was insane.  This was practically a brand new defense at the time.  In fact, though relatively new, Seward reminded the jury a few times to not consider the overuse of the insanity defense against his own insane client.

--A very strong argument against capital punishment itself.

--A very strong argument against the treatment of the insane.

--A rebuke about the bias accorded to the "negro" and to the insane.

--An impassioned stance against the slavery Freeman had lived under, and the mistreatment in jail he had incurred.

--A reminder that had Freeman been white, and the murdered family black, there would have been no trial.

--A warning to the jury to put aside their bias against "the negro" and "the infirm."

--A reminder that, although the murdered family's family and friends were all over the courtroom, the defendant's family was not, because they were slaves, and nobody could track them down.

--The oft-repeated quote: "The color of the prisoner’s skin, and the form of his features, are not impressed upon the spiritual immortal mind which works beneath. In spite of human pride, he is still your brother, and mine, in form and color accepted and approved by his Father, and yours, and mine, and bears equally with us the proudest inheritance of our race—the image of our Maker. Hold him then to be a Man."

And many more things.  And he won!  After a successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court (apparently the well-written argument given to the case's jury had no effect), he was spared from the scaffold and died of consumption in a cell somewhere.  An amazing thing, for one person to defend a person of a race oppressed by his own society, who killed a family of his friends.  Seward had everything politically to lose (and he feared for his safety and that of his family, too, from an enraged local populace during the lengthy trial), and he had the bias against the race and the insane to overcome.  All to save a man who never had the sense to know what was going on, to thank him or to pay him, who was never going to see the light of day, even if victorious.

I wonder if any politician today, with the public the ravenous and rabid dog that it is, would have the courage of his own beliefs to defend a man who had done this, who was as hated by his society as he was, who had killed a family of friends, solely because of Seward's beliefs against capital punishment, against slavery, and against bias against blacks and the insane.

I wonder if many of us would, even those of us outside the public eye.  Would many of us even take such a stance against someone at a social gathering?

Doubtful.