Lincolin the Theif & Pig

Derrick Dunn

June 28, 2010

HIS 121

Written Assignment 4: Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation

The final article I chose to read was Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation by Stephen B. Oates. While reading the article, I was not surprised to learn that Abe Lincoln like most men had his share of complexities. While he was self-educated and had a vast literary knowledge, Lincoln strived to be perfect, and if he could not be perfect then death was only option. One of the thing things Lincoln struggled with was women. Lincoln felt sexual inadequate when it came to the opposite sex. He was a man who could give a speech in front of 15,000 strangers but could not work up the nerve to talk to a woman if needed. Even though Lincoln eventually married Mary Todd, he still struggled with the thoughts of death.

Due to his heavy drinking, Lincoln’s mind would play tricks on him, which caused him to write a poem about his boyhood friend, Matthew Gentry who became deranged, this fascinated Lincoln and it could be argued that his death was a self furling prophecy. I would say it’s a self filling prophecy as if you think about death, then your bound to let it consume until happens.

In addition to his fascination with death, Lincoln could be seen a hyprictoical conspiracist. While Lincoln may have been a logical thinker, he believed in signs, visions, and that your dreams had something to do with your clarity in life. Furthermore, while he was not an atheist he did not believe in organized religion but he still agreed that GOD did control all things. Like most conspiracist's, Lincoln was also known to enjoy a good joke here and there, and Lincoln is a prime example of laughter being the best medicine. Lincoln wrote a story entitled Bass-Ackwards to help deal with the inner depression he was dealing with.

Lincoln was never a common man, as history would have you believe. Lincoln was a self taught lawyer and he felt ashamed of his log cabin background, so...