I would’ve sworn on a stack of Bibles that Abraham Lincoln was born in Illinois. I would’ve been wrong. Can you blame me, though? I mean, their license plates read “Land of Lincoln” for God’s sake. I now know that Kentucky has a little something to say about that.
Heading up from Nashville, I had planned to make it to Louisville by 11 a.m., giving me plenty of time to take in my high school friend’s art show, wander the city for trinkets, grab a bite and head back before dark. Ever a sucker for those brown national historical markers, once I saw the words “Abraham Lincoln Birthplace.” it was a no-brainer: exit #91- Elizabethtown.
As I embarked on what would become a four-hour detour, I wondered why I never knew Lincoln was born in Kentucky. Maybe this Kentucky Lincoln was a different Lincoln. “Oh, they’ve just got better Marketing, ma’am”, explained the National Park Ranger at Lincoln’s Birthplace, near Hodgenville, KY. Referring to Illinois, he definitely had a little attitude about the issue. He also inferred that perhaps Kentucky was the more honorable state for not exploiting their association to Lincoln the way that other place did.
How ironic that just days from the contentious – not to mention high stakes – Mid-Term Elections I was getting a spontaneous education about the man I’ve always seen as the veritable father of progressive politics, the Liberator himself. I found myself not just wandering the backroads of North-Central Kentucky but also pondering how something like a license plate could alter my entire definition of history, of the truth.
Today’s United States may well be in the throws of an existential struggle, where truth is often a matter of perception instead of a matter of fact. And my Lincoln facts were about to get schooled.
Born in 1809 on what was originally known as the Sinking Spring Farm, Abraham Lincoln famously had only two years of formal education and the natural gift for storytelling and oratory. Now a National Park with a breathtaking 56-step marble monument to the 16th President, Lincoln lived at Sinking Spring until age three. Of all the things I learned on this journey, perhaps the most incredible to me was that over 100,000 regular Americans donated the funds that constructed that Birthplace memorial, long after the President’s assassination.
Initiated by Roosevelt and dedicated by Taft, inside the marble behemoth is a model of a 19th century log cabin presumed to be very similar to the one Lincoln would have been born in. That Lincoln was important enough to everyday Americans a century later just overjoys me. Maybe I have my facts crossed about who is funding Presidential libraries these days, but I just don’t think it’s contributions from Joe the Plumber.
In 1812 the family moved from Sinking Spring to a nearby area called Knob Creek, also now a brand of Bourbon, where it’s said Abe would later entertain his pals with tall tales in his first taste of campaign life. As I meandered through the fields of Knob Creek, a brisk, cool breeze whipped around me and whistled through the trees, forcing the water of the creek forward and back and bristling the standing bales of hay.
It felt magical and occupied even though I was the only person around. The place was untouched since the time of Lincoln and I couldn’t help but imagine how the very grass I stood on had helped to mould the boy Abe into the future President Lincoln who would be known for his candor, compassion and calm.
The Lincolns left Knob Creek and Kentucky in 1816. Their departure was due to a land dispute but they also reportedly welcomed distancing themselves from the growing presence of slavery on neighboring Kentucky farms by moving to Indiana. The fact is that Abraham didn’t move to Illinois until he was 21 years old and beginning his legal and government careers.
Curious to learn more about a man I always thought I knew, I picked up a copy of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals about the candidate peers of Lincoln’s Presidential race, several of whom later became part of his cabinet Goodwin paints a picture of Lincoln as a bringer-together of men, even when their beliefs and agendas differed from his own. What a concept!
She also illustrates his melancholy and studious mood, one which in today’s media-saturated world would certainly squash his Presidential aspirations. Can you imagine a dark, brooding man whose gift for gab was more scholarly than social getting elected these days?
Some time in 2019 I hope to finish Goodwin’s over 500 page masterpiece and come away a veritable Lincoln expert. But even knowing there’s so much I still don’t know about him, I left his stomping grounds feeling smarter and being inspired, even challenged, by POTUS 16 to never forget what America has always been about: liberty in the face of struggle.
During a time of intense cultural and civil strife, Lincoln was an unlikely candidate, an unlikely winner, a consummate strategist, a liberating diplomat and an eventual martyr who helped answer fundamental questions for a struggling nation: Who is an American? What are American values? Who deserves to be free?
Even when our American values feel more myth than fact, we must remember that it’s the striving for equality (even when not achieved) that has always defined this nation. Lincoln had the moral compass to know this, the strength to pursue the course, the faith in America’s people to accept the outcome and the skill to make it happen.
I finally made it to Louisville and to my friend’s art show, if you’re wondering. And as I searched for parking near my first destination, I was greeted by a giant mural quoting Honest Abe himself: “Whatever you are, be a good one”. I believe in signs and I follow vibes and this was a vibe-y sign, friends, that my Lincoln experience was truly meant to be. I got to thinking: thank goodness Abe came before Instagram because we surely needed him and surely wouldn’t have picked him.
Ironically nearly two centuries later, our public discourse is again consumed with these same basic questions: Who is an American? What are our American values? Who deserves to be free? Seems we could use a dose of Lincoln right about now.