Sublime

“Abraham Lincoln struck off the chains of black Americans, but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy’s sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life.”

Lincoln’s goal, in each of these instances, was to balance law against military necessity, in the expectation that the passage of time and the success of his armies would stabilize the equilibria. “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” he wrote in 1864. “I cannot remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet, I have never understood tha

It was because he really understood war that he became so good at securing peace. He was the least militaristic of soldiers and free from the lust of glory. It was because he saw the value of peace that he became so unbeatable in war. For he kept the end in view, instead of falling in love with the means. Unlike Napoleon, he was not infected by the