HISTORY THREAD

A short history lesson. You can see it in the Capitol then too, with the bloody beating of Senator Charles Sumner by a fellow Congressman on the Senate floor.

As the Inauguration approached, there were so many threats by violent militias, they took the new President off his scheduled train and snuck him into Washington, DC in the dark of night.

The country was split in half, each side hating the other. And yes, the President in that case was Abraham Lincoln. That’s how they got him to DC for his Inauguration. But what’s worth remembering is that that wasn’t the end of the violence. It was the BEGINNING of it.

The Civil War started soon after. You can see the full story of how Lincoln‘s life was saved in our book, The Lincoln Conspiracy. But the reason @joshmensch and I wrote it was to show you not just the parallels, but what great leaders do in that situation.

Great leaders don’t divide us. They unite us. In his inaugural address, as half the country hated him, Lincoln didn’t look for a fight.

He said this: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.” He encouraged us to embrace “the better angels of our nature.“ He’s still right.