Monk

My library season is off to a good start. Once I stepped off the bus downtown, I hit my familiar stride and lost my curtain-opening qualms behind me. It's no trip to Paris, but it's a big deal to me. At the library, right away, I discovered what promises to be a great Lincoln book: "Lincoln: President-Elect" by Harold Holzer. It covers what is known as the Great Secession Winter of 1860-1861. I needed some beefy non-fiction.

The book was published last year, and I am surprised that I had not heard of it before. At first, I was concerned that this historical account might be too detailed and academic for me, especially since it is 500 pages that focuses on just the four months between Lincoln's election and his taking office. But it looks like another smooth narrative history/biography that is hardly meant for a narrow scholarly audience. All Liberal Artsy types are welcome, especially Lincoln admirers.

Here is a taste from the opening pages, in which Mr. Holzer relates the events and atmosphere of November 6, 1860, election day, and we also get to see that characteristically Lincolnian twist of morbid thought and modesty, that ultra-realism that helped to make him a man above men:

Lincoln himself had seemed uncharacteristically skittish. Less than three weeks earlier, he had confided to a caller, not for the first time, that he would have preferred contending for the Senate, "where there was more chance to make a reputation and less chance of losing it - than in the presidency." It was a startling admission. But having lost not one but two senatorial races over the past five years, most recently to Stephen A. Douglas - one of the Democrats now standing in the way of his election to the White House - Lincoln's conflicted thoughts were understandable. Surely his mood did not improve when he read an Election Eve letter demanding he withdraw from the race unilaterally, simply because, as its author put it, "we do not want you for President of the United States.... The Spirit says so." Jitters and divination notwithstanding, there was, of course, no turning back now from the nation's judgment day.

President Obama can certainly appreciate these somber feelings of his fellow Illinoisian. A lot of people may feel that Obama is not a legitimate president, nor even an actual American for that matter, but at least no states have left the Union on account of his election, though some have threatened to secede, such as our own Governor Perry, doing Texas proud. There may be few accomplishments that are more glorious than becoming President of the United States, but there also are not many positions that incur fiercer ridicule and hatred. Let us just hope that Obama gets to end his presidency on a more agreeable note than Lincoln was allowed to do.

As far as the other incidentals of my first library trip, I am sorry to say that the chicken fried rice was a little off. It was a little gummy and lacking in flavor, like it was in the refrigerator for a few days and was just microwaved up. It definitely was not the food of the gods that I was dreaming about over the long summer.

As for the walk home on this early kick-off of the library season, although it was another sunny day, it was not too hot for the long neighborhood stroll, and I imagine the heat should not be a problem again until May, which I do not want to even think about, still overcoming the trauma of this summer.

As for the bus travel in general, I am sorry to see that the clientele only seems to be getting poorer. It was a sign of things to come, when I arrived at the neighborhood bus stop first thing in the morning, that I was soon joined by two black men who seemed homeless, and for a minute I had that queasy feeling in my stomach that I might get mugged and be the victim of some nasty violence. In a tougher economy, I would expect to see a growth in the more somewhat well-to-do demographic riding the bus, but maybe more people no longer even have jobs and therefore have no need to travel at all. I am sure it is not because San Antonio is richer and has less need of mass transit. In any case, the dreary social ambience really brings home your social station. Rather demoralizing.

"With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling. But I must say I gave a great respect for the semicolon; it's a very useful little chap."

-- Abraham Lincoln

I tend to think that punctuation is more art than science myself. I'm not above being creative in spelling, either. You cannot contain the human spirit!

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"Instead of looking upon slavery as a sin I hold it to be a happiness for themselves and a social and political blessing for us. I have been through the whole south and have marked the happiness of master and man. True, I have seen the black man whipped but only when he deserved much more than he received.

"What right have you to exclude southern rights from the territories? Because you are the strongest? I have as much right to carry my slave into the territories as you have to carry your paid servant or your children."

-- John Wilkes Booth

That quote comes from Mr. Edward Steers Jr.'s Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. One might have thought that Monk had gotten enough from that Civil War era in American history after Shelby Foote's three-volume history. He just could not resist a good book on that assassination - so dark and sexy.

That quote above comes from a speech that Booth composed shortly after hearing about Lincoln's election to the presidency in 1860. Even in the ascendancy of his young acting career, Booth was preoccupied with slavery politics and his racist notion of what America means.

Mr. Steers draws out the complex web of conspiracy that reached from the core of the Confederate government, operating through their secret service, and through their brokers and spies in Canada and the North states. He deals out the effective refutation of the long-time popular idea that Booth was just a lone, crazed assassin, drawing out the depths of passion and enmity of those war years.

Mr. Steers' writing style may lack the best literary grace, but he relates a passionate and often times poignant tale. One will close with his account of Lincoln's mother's reception of his death, and Lincoln was known to be close to his stepmother:

'Strangely missing from family and friends was the woman who had meant the most to Lincoln and who showed him every kindness at a time when his world had turned so very dark. Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln was absent from her stepson's funeral. Now in her seventy-eighth year, "Aunt Sairy" learned from her son-in-law Dennis Hanks that her boy was dead. Five months later William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, would visit the old woman at her home at Goosenest Prairie eight miles south of Charleston, Illinois. Herndon made notes of his visit and conversation with Sarah Lincoln about her son: "I did not want Abe to run for President - did not want him Elected - was afraid Somehow or other - felt in my heart that Something would happen to him and when he came down to See me after he was Elected President I still felt that Something told me that Something would befall Abe and that I should see him no more." Years later Dennis Hanks would tell his listeners that when he told "Aunt Sairy" that he had bad news about her stepson, she said before he could tell her, "I knowed they'd kill him. I ben awaitin fur it.'

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