Abraham Lincoln, Defender of Freedom

The dead horses and smashed wagons impeded his passage. He had witnessed too many scenes of devastation, too much human misery, too much blood soaking the earth to let it get to him; and yet, he was still dismayed.

He rode into Richmond, the capital of the south, surrounded by death. The specter of death had plagued him throughout his lifetime: His little brother, his mother and grandparents, when he was just a boy. His first love, Ann Rutledge, at 25 years of age; the trigger of his first depression, which had also plagued him, and from whose shadow he would never escape…

But now, as the death toll continued to climb, he felt an even more devastating impact: a sense of guilt.

He had grown accustomed to living his life as a wounded man. He could keep going; in fact, that very condition was what helped him remain strong at the toughest moments of his presidency. But now, the guilt…

For each fallen soldier. For every mother who would never see her son again. And each general friend of his who died on the battlefield carrying out his orders. Abraham Lincoln was consumed, little by little. And yet his legend grew ever stronger. His footprint in history proliferated at the expense of the wrinkles that lined his forehead. An old man at age 50.

The corpses and spoils of the battle gave way, suddenly, to a fervent crowd that cheered him on. By now, everyone was fed up with the war. But a group of people came to him with genuine hope shining in their eyes: black people, young and old, who came to see with their own eyes the mysterious president who had devoted his political career to defend their status as human beings.

What they did not realize was that a few months before returning to the political arena, Lincoln believed his political career had been a bust. That others had managed to shine where he had failed. A melancholy man who was painful to look at… Until the law of 1854 was enacted, letting the states officially decide if they would allow slavery. He could not keep quiet any longer.

His failed career rose up from his own ashes. There were still embers in that fire of youth that he thought had burned out. Shortly after he became president, he got the chance of a lifetime to fulfill the mission he had longed for since his youth: to leave a trace of goodness and intelligence in the world that he could be remembered by.

Months later that imprint was imbrued with death. His refusal to yield, to reach cowardly compromise agreements on slavery, had led to a war that only now seemed to be nearing its end. A war that scarred the American people in a way that could not yet be quantified.

An elderly man stops in front of him. His black hands swollen from the countless years of slave labor, on who knows what plantation, and under what conditions. His eyes light up as he kneels in front of the president. Lincoln gently pulls him up, not wanting anyone to idolize him. And then he bows to the old man, in elegant reverence. A gesture that would be scandalous to many, and inspire hope in so many others.

His speech, as concise as his famed Gettysburg Address, would hardly reach the epic proportions of that brief oration, just a few months before, in the toughest and most uncertain moment of the war. They did not need an epic now: they needed reconciliation. Togetherness. Forgiveness. To begin again, but not from where they left off. On April 11, a week later, he planned to give another speech. He would wait for that day to make the biggest bang of all: abolishing slavery was not enough; black people should be allowed to vote. They should become full citizens.

Four days after requesting voting rights for black people, Abraham Lincoln would be assassinated at the Ford Theater. Mourned by so many, he would go down in history not as the man who started the bloodiest war ever on American soil, but as the man who sacrificed everything, who fought against all odds, against the greatest scourge he saw in his country and in the world: slavery. His imprint, as he always wished, would be profound, decisive, good and everlasting.

Though the many lessons to learn from Lincoln’s life cannot be reduced to a few short sentences, we would like to highlight just a few:

• The greatness of a leader is directly proportional to the transcendence of the causes they decide to embrace and the means they use to achieve them.
• Sadness and suffering, which stifle so many, bring others the wisdom and strength to fight for the most just causes and be detached from themselves.
• Defending big ideals will never be easy, and it will never cease to be dangerous.
• Great social changes never happen overnight… they always begin with the firm and just determination of a few, whom we like to call the creative minority.