Episode 99 – What Lincoln had in common with the founders

Abraham Lincoln came after the founding period in American history, but he had a lot in common with our founders. In this episode, we're joined by Jon White, author of the children's book "My Day with Abe Lincoln" to tell us all about him!

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
This is the FCB podcast Network.They're bringing us at the Jeremy the Story
of the Thing, and they thoughtso when we were in America and of

(00:24):
the Welcome back to the Growing Patriotpodcast American History for Kids. I'm your
host, Amelia Hamilton. In thisepisode, we're taking a little bit of
a side journey outside of the colonialperiod. In the last episode, we
talked about some of those themes thathold the colonial era together. And another

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president came along about seventy five yearslater who embodied a lot of those same
things, and today we're going totalk about him. Can you guess who
it might be? I'm Jonathan White. I'm a professor of American studies at

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Christopher Newport University in Newport News,Virginia, and I've been writing books about
Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War forabout fifteen years now. Gosh, and
you are so you're a college professor, but you've also been trying to teach
little ones about Abraham Lincoln recently.That's right. I have two daughters.

(01:40):
They are ten and almost eight,and we've been taking them to historic sites
for a long time. I've beenreading history books to them for a long
time and I recently decided that Iwould write a children's book of my own,
and it's something that comes out ofthe fun I've had with them in
terms of looking at history together.So when I was looking at your book,

(02:05):
I realized that it went kind ofperfectly with an episode we just did,
which is Abraham Lincoln. Well,he has a lot in common,
I think with a lot of ourfounders because we mostly focus on the founding
period here, But Abraham Lincoln,I think that his heart was kind of
a heart of a founding father ina lot of ways. So, first,
would you agree with that? Iabsolutely think so. He Lincoln looked

(02:28):
at the Declaration of Independence as thetouchstone of his thinking. He believed that
the principles of the Declaration of Independencewere real and that they applied, as
he said, to all people ofall colors everywhere. And so what Lincoln
wanted to accomplish as a politician andthen as president was to get America to
live up to the ideals of theAmerican Founding. He did not want to

(02:52):
reject the principles of the American Revolution. He thought the American Revolution was good
and that the principles that put forwardwere good. He just looked debt the
country and his generation and thought,we're not living up to it. And
so throughout the eighteen fifties he gavespeeches pointing Americans to the Declaration of Independence,
and then as president he's able toactually then help create policies that put

(03:14):
those principles into action. In oneof those famous speeches, he says a
phrase that I think a lot ofpeople think actually comes from one of the
one of the founding documents, andthat is of the people, by the
people, for the people. Youknow, that is from his I think
probably his most famous speech, theGettysburg Address, And it seems to me,

(03:37):
I think when people reference that,I hear a lot of people think
that comes from our founders. Haveyou found that I have, And I
think a lot of people don't knowwhere it comes from. I think some
people have even thought it comes outof the Constitution. It's a phrase that
Lincoln used at Gettysburg, and hehad used variances of it before, but
I think that's the most famous versionof it. It's an idea that is

(04:01):
rooted in the Founding because again,the Declaration of Independence is all about government
by consent, and so Lincoln istaking that idea and giving it a new
phrase to capture what they were gettingat. Yeah, that idea definitely comes
from our founding, but he wrappedit up so nicely in that phrase.
Yeah. But what I was kindof getting at before is that we just

(04:26):
recently did an episode about some themesfrom our founding, and I think that
Abraham Lincoln really embodies these two.So I wanted to kind of take this
episode and go through it a littlebit from the frame of Lincoln. So
Lincoln, with his focus on theindividual, how did he embody that?

(04:47):
Lincoln really believed in the idea ofwhat he called the right to rise,
that anyone from any background could workhard and make a better life for themselves.
That is Lincoln's story. Lincoln grewup in a very poor household.
His father was a farmer, hisfather a farmer and carpenter. His father

(05:09):
was not educated, but Lincoln realizedthat through hard work and through education,
he could make a better life forhimself. And so even though his dad
didn't value education, Lincoln did everythinghe could to teach himself to learn and
to develop his skills at reading andwriting. He would write poetry that was
you know, kind of not sloppy, but you know, not great poetry.

(05:32):
But it was a way for himto learn how to play with words
and hear how they sounded and fittogether. And I think those kind of
skills helped him develop as a writerand a public speaker as he got older.
He also got other jobs. Youknow, he was a land surveyor,
and there's kind of an interesting connectionbetween him and George Washington because George
Washington had been a land surveyor asa young man, and so Lincoln was

(05:55):
developing skills that would help him meetpeople and get well known in his community
that he then used to turn intoa career in politics. So from a
very young age through his youth andadulthood, he's always trying to figure out,
how can I work hard? Howcan I better myself? How can
I make my life better? Andthen he took those principles as president and

(06:16):
as a politician, and he wouldgive speeches about how these apply to everybody,
regardless of your skin color. Hewanted people to be able to rise
and live a better life. Absolutely. And the second one, I think
is one that is pretty synonymous withAbraham Lincoln, and that is the idea
of liberty. Yeah, Lincoln reallybelieved in the principles again of the Declaration

(06:41):
of Independence, that all men arecreated equal, that they're endowed by their
creator with certain andalienable rights, amongwhich are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. And for Lincoln, he believed that slavery was incompatible with
that. He believed that slavery wasa moral wrong that needed to be dealt
with. And at the same time, Lincoln believed that the Constitution does not

(07:05):
allow our politicians to do anything theywant to, and a lot of our
politicians today don't realize that. ButLincoln believed that just because slavery was wrong,
it didn't mean that as president hecould do anything he wanted to get
rid of it. And so aspresident, he took steps to strike at
slavery, to try to minimize itor get rid of it in different ways

(07:29):
that he believed the Constitution allowed for. And in doing that, he was
trying to spread liberty and make itsomething that would be available eventually to all
Americans. And that leads perfectly intothe third one, which is the idea
of fairness and justice. Yes,Lincoln, everything I think Lincoln did,

(07:50):
he did out of a sense ofjustice. He had a very keen sense
of what was right and wrong.And I've written a lot about Lincoln and
the pardon power, and for younglisteners, that's something that happens when someone
commits a crime and they get convictedin court, they can petition their governor

(08:13):
or the president for a pardon,meaning that they might get let out of
jail, or if they have afine or another punishment, they get out
of having to serve that punishment.And as President, Lincoln dealt with hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds of pardon requests, and every time he would look at
them, you get the sense thathe would try to think about what is

(08:35):
the just outcome, what is theright decision here? And if someone committed
a very bad crime, he wouldallow them to endure their punishment. But
if he looked at it and hethought there are circumstances here that make me
think this person shouldn't have to gothrough their full punishment, he would then
he would often pardon them or dowhat was called commuting their sentence. Yeah,

(09:01):
so I think one of one ofthe major things that Lincoln would have
understood, and that our founders absolutelyalso understood is the idea of compromise when
you are the president, or whenyou are in any position of power.
When you're in charge, you're notgoing to absolutely get what you want.
You're going to have to come upwith something you can live with that will

(09:22):
work for everyone. Yes, Lincoln. It's interesting. Lincoln once talked before
the Civil War about working with peoplewho had different political views than him,
and someone criticized him for this,and Lincoln responded with a letter, and
I'm paraphrasing it here, but hesaid something along the lines of work with

(09:45):
people when they are doing right,and part with them when they're not.
And so there was something about himthat enabled him to work with people he
disagreed with if they shared a commongoal. And one of the things we
often forget about Lincoln is that hewas actually hated during his lifetime. If
you look at political cartoons from theeighteen sixties, you can see how much

(10:09):
people despised him and how critical ofhim they were, and that included members
of his own political party. Therewere people in his own political party,
the Republican Party, who thought he'snot doing enough, we're not satisfied with
him, we want to get ridof him. And then there were Democrats
who hated Lincoln because they were inthe other political party and they didn't like

(10:30):
what he was doing. So fromall sides, Lincoln was roundly criticized,
and yet he did what he couldto work with people who opposed him in
order to try to accomplish a commongoal. So Democrats of his era were
perfectly fine with slavery, and theydid not want to abolish slavery, but

(10:52):
they believed in saving the Union,and so Lincoln would go to them and
say, if you believe in savingthe Union, so do I. How
can we work together to accomplish that? And radicals thought he wasn't doing enough,
but he would find common ground withthem and be able to try to
fight to save the Union and endslavery and bring about liberty and political rights

(11:15):
for former slaves. And so hewas struggling to find compromise and common ground
with a lot of different people,but somehow he was able to do it
in a really remarkable way. Yeah, and that brings us perfectly to point
the last one point number five,which is, you know our founders in
Abraham Lincoln, you know, theyalways had their eye on that idea of

(11:37):
a more perfect union. Not aperfect union, but you just need to
make things better. And one ofthose things that the Founders even fought about
was slavery, and you know,they were not able to abolish it in
their time. They were just tryingto make things better. You know,
they were able to get freedom fromBritain, and it was it was in

(11:58):
Lincoln's time that slavery was abolished.So you know, talk to me a
little bit about that, that ideaof improvement but not perfection. Yeah,
And for the Founders, they theyhad a general sense, I think many
of not most of them, thatslavery was a moral evil, but they

(12:18):
didn't know how to get rid ofit. And so Thomas Jefferson very famously
said that slavery was like holding awolf by the ears. And you can
kind of imagine what that would belike. If you've got this vicious wolf
in front of you, you're holdingit by the ears. You so badly
want to get you want to letgo and get away from it, but
you know if you let go,it's going to attack you. And that

(12:41):
was how Jefferson in the early eighteenhundreds thought about slavery. It's like holding
a wolf by the ears in asthe United States kind of moved forward,
or I should go back for asecond. And so the Founders, Lincoln
believed, set slavery on what hecalled a course of ultimate extinction. And

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if you look at the Constitution,you'll see that it's a series of compromises,
and some of them had pro slaveryeffects, but some of them had
anti slavery effects. And Lincoln believedthat the Founders wanted to get rid of
slavery, they couldn't quite accomplish itin seventeen eighty seven when they wrote the

(13:22):
Constitution, and so they put provisionsinto the Constitution that would ultimately lead to
the death of slavery. And atthe same time, they never used the
words slave or slavery because James Madisonsaid that they didn't want the Constitution to
embody words that showed the idea ofproperty in man, meaning the idea that

(13:46):
one person could own another. Andso Lincoln said that the Founders hid slavery
away in the Constitution. He said, like if you had a really bad
disease, He said, if youhad a win or a cancer, if
you had a big tumor, youwouldn't walk around showing it to people,
you would hide it away, AndLincoln said that that's what the founders did
with slavery. They hid it inthe Constitution, hoping that it would eventually

(14:07):
disappear. Well, things changed,and as many of your listeners may know,
in the seventeen nineties, Eli Whitneyinvented the cotton gin and that made
growing cotton very, very profitable.You could make a lot of money if
you owned a big plantation. Andthe United States also started to spread westward
through the Louisiana Purchase, and theybegan to acquire all this land that then

(14:31):
was opened up to cotton. Andso by the time you get to the
Civil War, things have changed alot. Slavery was no longer on the
path of going away. It wasactually on a path of getting stronger and
stronger and spreading to more and moreland. And so Lincoln's goal as president,
as a politician, and as presidentis to try to stop slavery from

(14:52):
spreading. And he believes if hecan do that, eventually he'll be able
to live up to the founder's idealsof destroying slavery. But it'll take a
long time, he thinks, andit'll be slow and hard but that's how
he ultimately approaches the issue. Yep, It's all about you know, like
like our founders said, a moreperfect union, and like Lincoln knew,

(15:13):
just improving, just getting making thingsbetter over time. That's right. And
the more perfect union for Lincoln wouldbe living up to those original ideals of
stopping slavery and eventually getting rid ofit. Yeah. So who are some
of Lincoln's you know, founding heroes? Did he look back to the Founders?

(15:35):
I think Lincoln's biggest hero from theFounding generation would be George Washington.
So I've written this children's book aboutLincoln called My Day with Abe Lincoln.
And one of the things, oneof the stories, or one of the
through lines in it, is thatLincoln loved to read, and he really
took that up as a kid andthen read throughout his whole life. And
as a child he read some veryfamous books about George Wahts Washington, and

(16:00):
he grew to love those stories ofWashington crossing the Delaware and attacking the Hessians,
you know, right after Christmas inseventeen seventy six, and those stories
stuck with him from his childhood allthe way to his adulthood. So a
very famous story from his childhood isthat he borrowed a book about George Washington

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and it was in the Lincoln cabinand it rained, and then the rain
somehow leaked into the cabin and ruinedthis book that he had borrowed, and
he borrowed it from a neighbor whothen made him pickcorn for I think a
whole day to kind of pay offfor this book that he had destroyed.
But the stories he read borrowing thatbook that was by a guy named David

(16:45):
Ramsey, or reading Parson Weems's veryfamous biography of Lincoln, those stories stuck
with him. And when Lincoln waselected president and started his journey to Washington,
d c. When he left Springfield, Illinois, he gave a little
heartfelt extemporaneous speech, meaning it wasn'twritten out, It was just him kind
of talking off the top of hishead, and he referred to George Washington

(17:07):
and he said he now had atask before him that was greater than that
that George Washington faced. And heeventually made it to Trenton, New Jersey,
where he talked to the leaders ofNew Jersey in the state House,
and he referred back to the bookshe had read as a child, and
talked about how he remembered, youknow, with great thrills, reading about

(17:27):
George Washington and the Continental Soldiers.And then he crossed the Delaware River,
going the opposite way that George Washingtondid, and he went to Philadelphia and
Independence Hall, and on George Washington'sbirthday, he delivered a speech at Independence
Hall. Again, talking off thetop of his head, he said,

(17:47):
I only came here thinking I wouldraise a flag. I didn't expect to
give a speech. But in thespeech, he then reflected on the principles
He said that motivated the Continental Armyto fight, and he said there had
to be something in those principles greaterthan just independence from Great Britain. It
was about giving liberty to all people. And what's remarkable about that speech is

(18:11):
he was standing in the place whereGeorge Washington had presided over the Constitutional Convention.
He was standing in the place wherethe Continental Congress had debated and revised
the Declaration of Independence, and standingthere, Lincoln said that if America lost
those principles of liberty and equality,he said, it would be truly awful.

(18:33):
And then again talking just off thecuff, he said, and I
was about to say I would beI would rather be assassinated on this spot
than to sacrifice those principles. Andof course, four years later Lincoln would
be assassinated for fighting to uphold thoseprinciples. So George Washington, I think,
really motivated Lincoln in his thinking.The Declaration and the army of the

(18:55):
Patriots really motivated him. And infact, even in eighteen sixty two,
when Lincoln was president, he wasreally frustrated with his commanding general, a
guy named George McClellan. And it'sFebruary of eighteen sixty two and Lincoln says
to McClellan, I want you tomove by George Washington's birthday. So even
thinking about Washington as a motivating factorin that way is a real big thing

(19:18):
in Lincoln's thinking as president. Wow, what are some ways that Lincoln was
different than our founders? Were theretimes where he made decisions that seemed different?
Yeah? I think Lincoln was differentin a lot of ways, and
he was a man of a differenttime. I think Lincoln is a lot
more approachable than our founding fathers ina very real way. We often think

(19:40):
about George Washington as being quiet andaloof James Madison, Jefferson, They're hard
for us to connect with in someways, whereas Lincoln, I think is
different. And Lincoln was very approachablein his day. So in my children's
book, one of the themes thatcomes out is the idea of handshaking.

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And as a boy, Lincoln learnedthe importance of handshaking from his teacher in
Indiana. His teacher would have studentsgo around and shake each other's hands and
practice their manners, which I thinkis something that children should still do today,
learn how to shake hands and greetsomeone and make eye contact. And
Lincoln took those lessons with him allthe way to his presidency. I wrote

(20:25):
a book a couple of years agocalled A House Built by Slaves, and
it's about black men and women whowent to the White House. And in
every moment where Lincoln met people atthe White House, he shook their hands,
and he talked to them, andhe listened to them. And anyone
who wanted to in Lincoln's time couldactually go and meet with the President and
talk about anything they wanted to.And Lincoln almost always greeted his visitors with

(20:52):
a listening ear and a welcoming handshake, and a sense of kindness what we
today would call authenticity, that hewas real with them. And that's something
that I don't know that people ofthe founding generation would have experienced in quite
the same way in meeting with theirpresident. It was a it was a
different time, and I think alot of the early early leaders were probably

(21:18):
a little a little bit more removedfrom the ordinary people in a way that
Lincoln. He just mixed and mingled. He had a great sense of humor.
He would tell jokes, he wouldhe would say things that were a
little inappropriate at times, but thatwas his way of connecting with ordinary Americans.
And and that was the thing.Lincoln was an ordinary person who rose

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to greatness, the first president kindof born on the frontier, who was
living west of the Mississippi River tothen be elected president. And because he
was a common person and lacked education. There's another big difference. I mean,
George Washington's education was lacking in someways. But then the other great
presidents, you know, Jefferson andMadison and Adams they had all they had

(22:04):
very very good educations. Lincoln didnot. Yeah, that's great, So
what are some of the key thingsthat you would like kids to remember when
they think about Lincoln. So inthe kids book I've written, there's a
really big theme, which is theimportance of reading, and reading is just

(22:25):
so important for kids today. AndI'll even say this reading in a book
or a magazine, not just readingon a screen. Our eyes function differently
when we read on a screen thanwhen we read on paper, and we
remember things better when we read onpaper. And so I hope that kids
who read my kid's book will seehow important reading was to Lincoln, how

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it made his life better, andthat it'll help ignite a love of reading
and kids. I also hope thatkids will learn that Lincoln overcame some really,
really hard struggles. I think alot of times kids today they struggle
with things, whether it's anxiety orpeer pressure or kids teasing them at school,

(23:10):
and we often forget that Lincoln wasa real person and he actually struggled
with the same kind of things.So Lincoln's first day of school when he
was a little boy, his momsent him into school wearing a sunbonnet and
teased him for that because he lookssilly. And you know, kids who
get teased for their outfits today canrealize that Lincoln struggled with something like that.

(23:33):
Lincoln lost his mother when he wasnine years old, and children who
go and he then ended up beingraised in a blended family, and children
who who have lost a parent ora loved one can see that Lincoln experienced
something like that. Lincoln struggled withspelling. My kids have spelling tests every
Friday, and sometimes they go welland sometimes they don't. Yeah, and

(23:56):
I'm sure that all the listeners tothe podcast to have to work on spelling.
And as a child, Lincoln struggledwith spelling, and in my Kid's
book, I tell some really funstories about that. But even as an
adult, Lincoln struggled with spelling.I did a kid's event in Pennsylvania recently
and another one in DC recently,and I've started doing all my kids events

(24:19):
with a little spelling beat, andI'll ask the kids in the audience to
spell certain words, and they're allwords that I knew. Lincoln struggled with
spelling. So in one of theevents, I said, can anyone here
spell the word very? And asecond grader raised his hand and he spelled
it ve e r E y.I said, nope, not quite,

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and an older boy, a fifthor sixth grader, spelled it correctly.
And then I told the group,you know, Abraham Lincoln as an adult,
spelled the word very v r ry at almost forty times and so
and there were a lot of wordsthat Lincoln struggled with spelling, and so
I I hope that young people cancan see that some of the things they

(25:03):
struggle with, whether it's at schoolor at home, that Lincoln actually struggled
with some of the same kind ofthings. And yet Lincoln was able to
work hard and learn and overcome hisstruggles and become I think, our greatest
president. You might you know,someone who does the founding might say George
Washington. I'll put Washington way uphigh to but that Lincoln is a model

(25:26):
for young people, and I hopethat people can be inspired by his story.
Absolutely, And where can we findyour book and find out more about
it? Yeah. So the bookis called My Day with Abe Lincoln,
and it's a chapter book with alot of illustrations, and it's geared towards
young readers, probably about six tonine, although parents can read it to
younger kids. And I think olderkids can still find a lot of fun

(25:49):
in it. And it's available onAmazon and Barnes Andnoble dot com or BN
dot com and all the different kindof places online, and it's carried out
a lot of museums and gift shopsaround the country. It just came out
in February, and it was illustratedactually by an art student from Christopher Newport
University where I teach, and soit was a lot of fun to get

(26:11):
to work with her. And mychildren make some appearances in the books in
the book, and they were veryhelpful in writing it as well. So
it's a really fun adventure story,and I guess I should tell people a
little bit about it. It's abouta third grade girl who doesn't want to
go to school on Monday morning.And I won't spoil it, but she

(26:34):
does something that causes her to travelback in time, and she goes back
in time to Indiana in the eighteentwenties, where she meets a young Abe
Lincoln and his sister Sarah, andshe goes to school with them, and
then she goes home with them afterschool, and all throughout the day she
learns just incredible stories about Abraham Lincolnstories that are true about how he almost

(26:56):
died a couple of times when hewas a little boy, and his struggles
was spelling and all the things hedid to learn how to read. And
she comes back to the present justa new person, kind of inspired by
Abraham Lincoln. And my hope isagain that the book will help inspire young
people to learn about Lincoln and tobe inspired by his story. That sounds

(27:18):
like fun. It was a lotof fun to write. I spent a
couple of years working on it,and it's a very fun creative thing to
get to write a story like that. It's different from a normal history book.
It still gives people the history,but it does it in a different
way. Yeah, it's always funto explore with our imaginations too. Yeah,

(27:40):
thank you so much for joining ustoday. This was a fun leap
forward in our historical timeline. Butstill Lincoln has always been one of my
favorites as well. My focus hasalways been kind of in the founding period,
but he exemplifies that spirit so well, and I don't know, he's
always been one of my absolute favorstoo, So I'm so glad you were

(28:02):
able to spend this time with ustoday. Share your book. Absolutely,
I encourage everyone to have a look, go buy it, and yeah,
share what you think. We willtweet links and share links on all of
our social media so you will beable to find it there and tell us
what you think. Thanks for joiningme today as we took this trip outside

(28:29):
of the colonial period, but withthe president who still had that colonial spirit.
Be sure to check out Growingpatriots dotcom for resources that go with this
episode and every episode, and findus on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
at Growing Patriots. Can't wait tosee you next time. Agree to solve

(28:53):
with Jeranny, share the thing andthen thought so would be Americaander. This
has been a presentation of the FCBpodcast Network, where real talk lives.

(29:15):
Visit us online at Fcbpodcasts dot com.