Quote · Lex Fridman Podcast
#499 – Gary Gallagher: American Civil War, Slavery, Lincoln, Grant & Lee
Where this was said
Lincoln
At 1:00:15 · chapter starts 46:07
Gallagher opens by admitting Lincoln is one of the few figures who keeps rising in his estimation the older he gets. Lincoln's background was not just modest — he barely had a year of formal schooling, no administrative experience beyond a small law office, and a single two-year term in Congress. His resume in 1861 was catastrophically thin compared to Jefferson Davis's West Point degree, Mexican War command, Senate committee chairmanship, and Cabinet service. And yet Lincoln ended up as the superior commander-in-chief: he could admit error, change his mind, tolerate obnoxious subordinates if they might deliver, and maintain relentless focus on the war's twin goals of suppressing rebellion and, eventually, ending slavery. Lex and Gallagher recite both the Second Inaugural Address and the Gettysburg Address in full — the latter unpacked to show that Lincoln's genius was not in the prepositions (of, by, for) but in 'the people' themselves.
Lincoln had almost no formal schooling, no administrative experience, and a rural accent that Harvard men sneered at. Yet he became the most eloquent president in American history and eventually outmaneuvered every more-educated rival in his cabinet. The man is simply inexplicable.
In a perverse historical irony, Robert E. Lee is partly responsible for emancipation. His battlefield brilliance extended the war long enough that the Union concluded it had to destroy slavery to win — and without that extended war, slavery might have outlasted even Brazil.
