R. D. Harless

Thanks to a movie now in theaters (Skylincoln or something), interest in our 16th President has grown 7000% in just two months. Those numbers are shocking and would be even more so had I not made them up. Consequently, Abraham Lincoln’s name is getting slapped onto all kinds of television shows and internet articles in empty attempts to generate profit, ratings, and web hits. It is my opinion that this exploitation of his life and untimely death ultimately cheapens us as a country and spits on his grave of a great man for money and attention. It is borderline desecration and would not have found favor with such a humble man from such humble beginnings . . .

Lincoln: Portrait of a President: In Words, Not Pictures:

Abraham Lincoln was born in a hollow log in Cabin, Illinois. He grew to manhood under the yoke of poverty, having only an ax and faithful blue ox, Babe. Lincoln held many jobs and was held in high esteem for his hard-working attitude. But when Babe died from the ox flu, Lincoln wrote in a letter to friend Joshua Speed, “… [I] have no more use for the soul my companion’s departure has left withered in me…” Despondent and inconsolable, Lincoln became a lawyer and, later, a politician.

In politics, however, he found renewed purpose. Lincoln’s keen, affable mind and gift for clever story-telling were put to use in Congress, where the president not only garnered respect and admiration from colleagues, but a collection of nicknames like “The Rail-Splitter” for his early job splitting rails, “Uncle Abe” for his friendly demeanor, and “The Ancient One” for his worship of Y’golonac the Defiler. On his first bid for the White House, Lincoln won a landslide electoral victory. But while the newly-elected president had proponents in Washington and throughout the country, his election did provoke controversy in some corners. For example, it’s alleged by many modern historians that Lincoln, a married man, may have engaged in a homosexual relationship with friend Joshua Speed, and that the resulting gay panic was one of the major contributing factors to Southern Secession. Even Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd, perhaps also suffering from gay panic, drew criticism for spending what some felt was an excessive amount of the country’s money on renovations and improvements to the White House. When questioned on the matter by a reporter, the always sharp-tongued Lincoln replied, “Women be shopping.”

Soon after the Illinois lawyer took office, the Union split. Southerners who had vowed to relocate to Europe or Canada were he elected decided to just make their own country so they didn’t have to move. The Civil War began in earnest not two months into Lincoln’s term in office. Though he projected confidence to the public, years after his death, close friends would reveal that the president was in fact not fond of the war. Despite this aversion, Lincoln ran a successful war presidency that ultimately pulled the Union back together even with his absence at an unknown point post-Gettysburg when he aided two young time-travellers in saving the very future of human civilization (these were not, however, the same time-travellers who prevented his assassination by John Brown’s men prior to the Civil War).

Tragically, these dick time-travellers did not give Lincoln any warning of the violence that would befall him. After the South’s surrender at Appomatox, the president was assassinated by noted American leading man John Wilkes Booth, the first actor to inject himself into politics because he felt his views were ‘important’ (also originator of the industry term ‘headshot’). Lincoln’s murder shocked a populace that still had the horrors of war fresh in its mind, and at least half the nation mourned his passing. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his then Vice President, Andrew Johnson, who narrowly escaped impeachment and then died (way to reach for the stars).

President Lincoln would die unaware of the length and breadth of his achievements but hoping that he had put his country back onto a path that cherished freedom. It is unlikely he ever imagined himself one day being so revered as to be memorialized forever next to our greatest presidents (also Teddy Roosevelt), being the first president to have his likeness on U.S. currency, having a clone that would hook up with Cleopatra, or that a Lincoln android would help the crew of a mining spaceship escape space-execution by a robot (space) Caligula. And while these four things alone would be enough to transform any ordinary man into a figure of legend, they are only bullet points in the mind-blowing legacy of a President ahead of his time.