150 years ago today Abraham Lincoln completed 54 earthly years. Nowadays his brief bio is used as an inspirational piece – the story of a person who sort of failed his way to the top. He definitely kept on learning and then worked his way up in politics. When he became president he had to overcome all sorts of opposition to keep the Union together. Politicians need thick skins.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch February 2, 1863:
Is he a man or a dog?
A Northern paper informs us that the President of the Yankees, after reading some severe strictures upon his character in one of the newspapers exclaimed, “Am I Abraham Lincoln, or am I a dog?”
We trust that the natural philosophers of Doodledom will make haste to assist their master in the solution of this open question. It is one which involves not only his own status, but the classification of the entire race of which he is the representative dog, or man, as the case may be — They have deliberately elected as their Chief Magistrate a nondescript, who is himself unable to decide whether he is a man or a dog. Posterity, judging them by their actions, will never believe that either Abraham or his followers were men.–But it does not follow, because they are not entitled to the name of men that they are dogs.–We should be loath to do such injustice to “those American citizens” of canine descent whom Nature has denied the means of defending themselves from the imputation implied in the inquiry, “Am I Abraham Lincoln, or am I a dog?” Abraham is certainly not a dog — at all events, not a dog of the higher classes. He is no dog of St. Bernard or Newfoundland, for his instincts are destructive not conservative, and his manners lack the majestic dignity and repose of those benevolent and magnanimous creatures. He is not a bulldog nor a mastiff; for while he is more ferocious than either, he is neither honest nor brave. He is not a shepherd’s dog, for he worries and scatters instead of guiding and guarding the sheep. He has gone [?] of the vulgar habits of dogs and like the dog in the fable, he jumps into the stream after the shadow of meat, and loses the substance. But the good sense and affectionateness of even the lowest order of ours are beyond the capacity of the Yankee President. On the whole, we should be inclined to answer the question. “Am I Abraham Lincoln or am I a dog?”–you are Abraham Lincoln.
