THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS AND THE GREATNESS OF HUMILITY; New Yorker, February 19, 2017

Sarah Larson, New Yorker; 

THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS AND THE GREATNESS OF HUMILITY

"The new Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, is highly motivated to make this library, and all libraries, a favorite object of the people. Hayden is the first person of color, and the first woman, to lead the Library of Congress; she is also the first actual librarian to lead it since 1974. Her predecessor, Dr. James Billington, a distinguished Russia scholar appointed by Ronald Reagan, was beloved for his intellect but criticized for mismanagement; he neglected, for many years, to appoint a chief information officer, which was required by law, and he also didn’t use e-mail. Hayden, a former head of the American Library Association, revitalized and modernized Baltimore’s twenty-two-branch Enoch Pratt Free Library system. President Obama nominated her, in 2010, to be a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board, and, last year, to become Librarian of Congress...

Like many librarians, Hayden is a big believer in the rights of all people to educate themselves, and in the importance of open access to information online. (This inclusive spirit has become more urgent nationally in recent weeks: see “Libraries Are for Everyone,” a multilingual meme and poster campaign, created by a Nebraska librarian, Rebecca McCorkindale, to counter the forces of fake news and fearmongering.) In September, Hayden gave a swearing-in speech in which she described how black Americans “were once punished with lashes and worse for learning to read.” She said that, “as a descendent of people who were denied the right to read, to now have the opportunity to serve and lead the institution that is our national symbol of knowledge is a historic moment.”...

I thought of the drafts of Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address that a curator in the Inaugurations exhibit had shown me. Lincoln had originally ended his speech with a challenge to the South: “Shall it be peace or sword?” William Henry Seward had suggested an edit that pushed Lincoln toward a more conciliatory tone, and the phrase “guardian angel of the nation.” Lincoln turned that into the sublime “better angels of our nature,” an appeal to our common humanity. Our greatest President was also, possibly, our greatest reviser—a cutter and paster who questioned his imperfect ideas, accepted input, made them better, and kept all of his drafts, so that history could learn not just from his speeches but from the workings of his mind. The contents of the library, like Hayden herself, often directed my attention to the systems by which progress is made and recorded."

Abraham Lincoln’s lesson for Trump: America’s at its best when we respect individual dignity; The Conversation via Salon, 7/8/16

Donald Nieman, The Conversation via Salon; Abraham Lincoln’s lesson for Trump: America’s at its best when we respect individual dignity:

"Lincoln believed that America’s commitment to equality and human dignity made it great. He criticized those who denied that the Declaration of Independence applied to African-Americans as “blowing out the moral lights around us.” In announcing his support for emancipation as president, he argued that it would preserve America’s role as “the last best hope of earth.”

If Trump wants to “make America great,” he can learn a lot from Lincoln. He can begin by following Lincoln’s example and appeal to “the better angels of our nature” rather than to fear. He should realize that we are at our best when we respect individual dignity, not when we stigmatize groups because of their race, sex, identity or religion.

Or he can join the Know Nothings. The party enjoyed a meteoric rise in 1854 but splintered over slavery and fizzled in the 1856 presidential election. Today, Lincoln is remembered for expanding our understanding of freedom and equality. In contrast, the Know Nothings’ appeal to fear and bigotry reminds us only of our worst instincts."

The Man the Founders Feared; New York Times, 3/19/16

Peter Wehner, New York Times; The Man the Founders Feared:

"In 1838, as a 28-year-old state legislator, Abraham Lincoln delivered an address at the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Ill. The speech was given in the aftermath of the lynching of a mixed-race boatman and the burning of a black abolitionist newspaper editor. Lincoln warned that a “mobocratic spirit” and “wild and furious passions” posed a threat to republican institutions. He also alerted people to the danger of individuals — “an Alexander, a Caesar or a Napoleon?” — who, in their search for glory and power, might pose a threat to American self-government.

“Is it unreasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us?” Lincoln asked.

The antidote to this threat, Lincoln argued, was to cultivate a “political religion” that emphasized “reverence for the laws.” Passion was our enemy, he warned; it had to be contained. “Reason — cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason — must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.”"