Abraham Lincoln

Dear Readers,

I love Abraham Lincoln. I love what he stands for. I love what he represents. But I love his actual life, too. Who doesn’t like him? I haven’t met anybody who doesn’t like Abraham Lincoln. He was a genius, I think. He read Shakespeare’s play for fun. He quoted the Bible a lot. I love the way he wrote and I loved the way he talked. He was a man of high moral character. I think he had the hand of God on him, guiding him. He’s interesting. He didn’t go to much formal school. He was largely self-taught. He grew up poor in the boonies, in the wilderness, in the frontier land of Kentucky and Illinois. He was a hard-worker. He liked theatre. His ghost haunts the White House. He wrote the Gettysburg address on the back of an envelope while he rode on a train. He was a rail-splitter. He was a lawyer. He was a postmaster. He was ugly. Walt Whitman liked him. Carl Sandburg liked him. In a Reply to Horace Greeley published in the National Intelligencer in 1862, Lincoln explains that his main goal isn’t to free the slaves, but to save the Union. He ends the letter with the beautiful sentence, “I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.”

I’m usually scared of ghosts. I don’t want to see a wicked ghost. I don’t want wicked ghosts to bother my family or me. But I’d like to see the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. He’d be a nice ghost. If I ever go to Washington D.C., I’d like to take a tour of the White House and I’d like to take a tour and I’d like to look for his ghost. I’d tell him I thought he was a great president. I’d would thank him for all he did for the United States of America. And I’d ask him what was bothering him, why he was still a ghost wandering around the White House. And he would probably smile at me- it would be a warm, warm smile- and then his spirit would fade from my vision.

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa