We all know that Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest presidents. We all know he gave some of the best speeches. We all know about his leadership in the Civil War, and his signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
But did you know he could see the future?
Well, not really. The piece I have in mind is not about Bush and Iraq, but about Polk and Mexico……but it’s eerie.
And it’s below the fold
I was rereading Gary Wills’ magnificent Lincoln at Gettysburg and ran across this speech of Lincoln’s
I more than suspect already that he is deeply conscious of being in the wrong – that he feels the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to heaven against him. That originally having some strong motive – what, I will not stop now to give my opinion concerning – to involve two countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny, by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory – that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood – that serpent’s eye that charms to destroy – he plunged into it and has swept on and on till, disappointed in his calculation of the ease with which Mexico might be subdued, he now finds himself he knows not where. How like the half-insane mumbling of a fever dream is the whole war part of his late message!…..His mind, tasked beyond its power, is running hither and thither, like some tortured creature on a burning surface, finding no position on which it can settle down and be at ease.
and there you have it all….from a speech given in Congress in 1846.
Bush’s mind is, indeed, tasked beyond its power, and the war was, indeed, presented to us as an attractive rainbow, which, unfortunately, rises in showers of blood. As to the motives of which Lincoln does not speak, they were, WIlls opines, to expand slavery into Mexico, which had already abolished it.