February 12, 2009
Lincoln’s life, legacy still studied and appreciated
An informal lecture early this evening and a big combined-band concert next Thursday may be the only campus events at the UW directly noting the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. But the man’s life and legacy are the subject of ongoing study and appreciation on campus.
At the UW, as at most American universities, Lincoln continues to inspire faculty, staff and students even 144 years after his death.
The sixteenth president will be celebrated by the School of Music with “Lincoln Portrait,” a combined concert of the UW symphonic, concert and campus bands, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19, in Meany Theater.
“I was always a huge fan of his, to be able to do this concert is a real thrill,” said Brad McDavid, director of Husky Athletic Bands, who will conduct several pieces. “It’s great for the first concert of the quarter.”
The program will begin with McDavid conducting the Symphonic Band as it plays a modern work titled Songs of Old Kentucky (the state of Lincoln’s birth), followed by the 1981 work Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, and then Stephen Foster’s famous My Old Kentucky Home, dating from 1853.
McDavid said despite Lincoln’s fame, there isn’t a lot of music written specifically about him, but one most people know is Aaron Copland’s 1942 piece A Lincoln Portrait. Eric M. Smedley will conduct the Symphonic Band for this, and Frazer Cook, announcer for the UW Husky Marching Band for the past 48 years, will provide the narration that begins with words from Lincoln’s 1862 Message to Congress: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”
The Concert Band, conducted by Vu Nguyen and Angela Zumbo, will follow with Old Home Days Suite for Band, Be Glad Then, America, and Americans We. The Campus Band, conducted by Gary Brattin and Kirsten Cummings, will play Rushmore, A Symphonic Prologue for Winds, John Philip Souza’s King Cotton and the American Civil War Fantasy by Jerry Bilik. McDavid said of the Bilik piece, “It’s not only a montage of songs that were related to the Civil War, both north and south, but also a music re-enactment of a battle scene. It’s really stirring.”
The Civil War Fantasy piece also includes snippets of a tune many are surprised to hear that Lincoln loved: Dixie, that great anthem of the American south. McDavid said he has read that on the night of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Va., “people gathered outside the White House and serenaded the president. Dixie was one of the songs he requested.”
Asked what he admires most about Lincoln, McDavid said, “The fact that he came from meager beginnings, and always remained grounded — yet ironically he goes down in history as one of our most eloquent presidents.”
In another campus event — this one today — Tracy McKenzie, professor of history, will talk about Lincoln and his legacy at a meeting hosted by the UW and Puget Sound chapters of Phi Beta Kappa (the nation’s oldest honor society, founded in 1776) and the UW Honors Program. The event will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the UW Club Conference Room.
McKenzie, the Logan Family Chair in American History, teaches entire courses about Lincoln, including an annual 400-level class on the Civil War that follows the leader from the 1850s until his death. McKenzie said he’ll speak briefly — a difficult task indeed with such a topic — talking about the myths and realities of Lincoln’s life and work.
“He became a mythical figure almost instantaneous with his assassination,” McKenzie said. “He went from being probably among the three least popular presidents — very unpopular as late as two to three months before his re-election, and convinced in his own mind that he had no chance for re-election — from being quite unpopular and controversial to being essentially a kind of larger-than-life figure upon his death.”
He has since become such an iconic figure in our nation’s identity, McKenzie said, that “Most Americans, whatever their political values, want Lincoln on their side.”
McKenzie said he’ll likely discuss two of Lincoln’s legacies that are less-well remembered over time, “and both have moral implications.”
For the first he harks back to the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas senate debates in Illinois. In these famous debates, he said, Douglas promoted the idea that the voice of the people — majority rule — should determine whether slavery should be allowed to continue and expand.
“Lincoln — at a moment in time in the mid-19th century when Americans were dogmatically committed to the idea of the democratic process as the highest good — with some courage on his part, Lincoln says that is not the question,” McKenzie said. Here, Lincoln is pointing out “the moral indeterminacy of majority rule … he’s saying, I think, that ultimately what tends to define a society are those questions where majority rule doesn’t matter,” and that slavery was among these “non-negotiables.”
Secondly, McKenzie said, Lincoln “on the one hand was absolutely convinced there are certain ideals in the American political tradition that are absolutely worthy of promotion and sacrifice. But on the other hand he was also quick to question whether America had met those ideals.”
More simply put, Lincoln resisted — and urged the north similarly to resist — self-congratulation and the notion that they had won because of a divine preference for their side. “As the war ended there was a sort of tendency to pat ourselves on the back. And Lincoln’s saying, ‘no.'”
McKenzie, whose voice contains soft traces of his own Tennessee roots, said he’s struck by how the Civil War is remembered somewhat more remotely in the Pacific Northwest than in the East, where monuments and old battlefields are still on view and families are more likely to have stories of war involvement.
He said some students become a bit disillusioned as they begin to separate the facts from the myths of Lincoln’s life, but deeper study brings a renewed respect for the president. “The truth is, Lincoln is one of the figures in history who I admire the most.”
The campus also has its share of amateur Lincoln historians, from McDavid’s interest in the man’s musical tastes to others studying his politics, personal style or approach to governance. George Martinez, director of communications for The Graduate School, doesn’t claim to be an expert but the shelves of his wood-paneled office in the Communications Building contain dozens of volumes about Lincoln.
Martinez finds much to like and admire about Lincoln, but is particularly interested in, and has given presentations on, the man’s unusual management style. Lincoln had “an innate understanding of human nature that matched with humility is quite rare,” Martinez said. “He was unusually comfortable with ambiguity, and has the flexibility to accommodate unexpected change.”
To be sure, Lincoln lives on, on this campus and every American campus, in classes, seminars, lectures and above all else — in libraries, where the stock of Lincoln-related books grows every year. Martinez speaks of “pockets of Lincoln scholarship” yet to be developed, and says the leader’s domestic policies have been overshadowed by the more dramatic events of his day.
Martinez said when confronted with a decision he’s inclined to ask himself, “What would Lincoln do?”
