Put Ashokan Farewell on your ipod and...

July 14, 1861,



Dear Sarah,



The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow and lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel compelled to write a few lines that may fall upon your eyes when I am no more.



I have no misgivings about or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged. And my courage neither halts nor falters. I know now how American civilization now leans upon the triumph of our government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. I am willing, completely willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government and to pay that debt.



Sarah, my love for you is deathless and seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break. Yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bares me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield. The memory of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you that I have enjoyed them for so long. And oh Sarah, how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years when God willing we may still have lived and loved together and seen our boys grown to honorable manhood around us. Sarah, if I do not return, never forget how much I loved you. Nor, that when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have sometimes been. But Sarah, my dear, dear Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you in the brightest day and darkest night. Always. Always. And when the soft breeze fans your cheek it shall be my breath or the cool air upon your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.



Sarah, do not mourn me dead. Think only that I am gone and wait for me. For we shall meet again. My dearest Sarah. We shall meet again.

Sullivan Ballou

Another example of why Barack Obama is exactly like Abraham Lincoln

Okay, maybe not exactly.

So Obama has started his presidential search, according to a number of sources, including this article from the Washington Post.

Todays' issue of The Note includes this choice quote:

"Talk of No. 2 is spreading to the Democratic side. Jim Johnson is on board to head up Sen. Barack Obama's vetting team, and Obama scrambled the deck a bit by citing "Team of Rivals" as a potential example for his administration: 'By the way, that does not exclude Republicans, either. The best person for the job is the person I would want.'"

Frenzy, consider yourself whipped.

Apologies to our zero readers for not posting a Lincoln of the Day yesterday.

THIS IS SO AWESOME.

Chicago est muy importante.

So it's a two-a-day.

OK, here's a quiz.

"Whenever I held up ______ for their [children of immigrant parents] admiration, I invariably pointed out his marvelous power to retain and utilize past experiences; that he never forgot how the plain people in Sangamon County thought and felt when he himself had moved to town; that this habit was the foundation for his marvelous capacity for growth; that during those distracting years in Washington it enabled him to make clear beyond denial to the American people themselves, the goal towards which they were moving."

a) Lincoln
b) Obama
c) Both! See how it's both?

Daley of the Day

A semi-regular feature.

“I’m pro-death. Let’s get on with it," in re capital punishment.

Oh, Mayor Daley. I love you and your autocratic autocracy and all that you've done for our city. I hope you're never not mayor.

Jane Addams on Lincoln of the Day

I remember the talk [Lyman Trumbull] gave at Hull-House on one of our early celebrations of Lincoln's birthday, his assertion that Lincoln was no cheap popular hero, that the "common people" would have to make an effort if they would understand his greatness, as Lincoln painstakingly made a long effort to understand the greatness of the people. There was something in the admiration of Lincoln's contemporaries, or at least of those men who had known him personally, which was quite unlike even the best of the devotion and reverent understanding which has developed since. In the first place, they had so large a fund of common experience; they too had pioneered in a western country, and had urged the development of canals and railroads in order that the raw prairie crops might be transported to market; they too had realized that if this last tremendous experiment in self-government failed here, it would be the disappointment of the centuries and that upon their ability to organize self-government in state, county, and town depended the verdict of history. These men also knew, as Lincoln himself did, that if this tremendous experiment was to come to fruition, it must be brought about by the people themselves; that there was no other capital fund upon which to draw.

I remember an incident occurring when I was about fifteen years old, in which the conviction was driven into my mind that the people themselves were the great resource of the country. My father had made a little address of reminiscence at a meeting of "the old settlers of Stephenson County," which was held every summer in the grove beside the mill, relating his experiences in inducing the farmers of the county to subscribe for stock in the Northwestern Railroad, which was the first to penetrate the county and make a connection with the Great Lakes at Chicago. Many of the Pennsylvania German farmers doubted the value of "the whole new-fangled business," and had no use for any railroad, much less for one in which they were asked to risk their hard-earned savings. My father told of his despair in one farmers' community dominated by such prejudice which did not in the least give way under his argument, but finally melted under the enthusiasm of a high-spirited German matron who took a share to be paid for "out of butter and egg money." As he related his admiration of her, an old woman's piping voice in the audience called out: "I'm here to-day, Mr. Addams, and I'd do it again if you asked me." The old woman, bent and broken by her seventy years of toilsome life, was brought to the platform and I was much impressed by my father's grave presentation of her as "one of the public-spirited pioneers to whose heroic fortitude we are indebted for the development of this country." I remember that I was at that time reading with great enthusiasm Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship," but on the evening of "Old Settlers' Day," to my surprise, I found it difficult to go on. Its sonorous sentences and exaltation of the man who "can" suddenly ceased to be convincing. I had already written down in my commonplace book a resolution to give at least twenty-five copies of this book each year to noble young people of my acquaintance. It is perhaps fitting in this chapter that the very first Christmas we spent at Hull-House, in spite of exigent demands upon my slender purse for candy and shoes, I gave to a club of boys twenty-five copies of the then new Carl Schurz's "Appreciation of Abraham Lincoln."

Lincoln of the Day

"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it."

From the "house divided" speech at the Illinois Republican State Convention, 1858.

What if there's a tie in the electoral college?

I was pretty well taken with this notion for a good portion of the day yesterday.

I came up with a pretty plausible electoral map that would result in a 269-269 tie between the Democrats and the Republicans.

Here's how it works.

Dems win CA, OR, WA, NM, CO, MN, IA, IL, WI, MI, PA, MD, DE, NJ, NY, DC, CT, MA, RI, VT, ME.

Reps win the rest. It's a 269-269 tie. Draw it on your map, or do it here.

So we know that then the election for president is thrown into the House of Representatives. The VP is chosen by the Senate. The following questions result:
- Does the 110th (current) Congress elect, or the 111th?
Answer: The Constitution, specifically the 12th Amendment, says that "immediately" upon the counting of the electors in Congress, the election in the House is held - so it's the 110th, since electors meet in early December. Which means, of course, that whoever is about to become president will also be voting for his or her vice president!
- Can the Senate filibuster a VP choice? (presumably yes, but this requires more research)
- Does the voting happen concurrently, or does the House vote first, then the Senate? There's no immediate constitutional information about this.

During my research I found out a giant wrinkle. If the election were thrown to the House, each state gets ONE vote, and the new president receives a majority of the states. States presumably caucus as delegations to pick a winner. So theoretically, a Republican could "win" a state in the House election that he "lost" in the electoral college, and vice versa.

I needed to do some research on what the split in delegations. And found this, courtesy of some awesome wikipedian.
27 states have a Democratic majority.
21 states have a Republican majority
2 states are evenly split
So a Democrat is elected, presumably.

Lincoln of the Day

Dear Madam, -

I have been shown in the files of the war Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln


Letter fo Mrs. Bixby, November 21, 1864

This is what change looks like

Watch.

Compliments, Jane Addams

She reports, in "The Influence of Lincoln," chapter two of Hull House, Edward Caird's wonderful description of Lincoln as a man "content merely to dig the channels through which the moral life of his countrymen might flow."



Also, I love Jane Addams. Growing up in Chicago, she hovered, a sepia-toned specter, over every March and city history fair. Then I read "A Modern Lear." The woman knew how to read. And she can write too-- Hull House is interesting in direct proportion to the boringness of the title. It is really really interesting. What is it about these prairie dwellers?

Oh hey, Chicago.

It's in the subtitle but we sorta forgot. A couple of reasons I love this lovely woman, broken-nosed:

My precinct captain on the front page of the Sun Times:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/957374,CST-NWS-stroger19.article

An essay from Alex Kotlowitz that visits Hot Doug's, the HideOut, and Carson Prairie Scott:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/126/us-city-of-the-year-chicago-soul.html?page=0%2C0

George Packer is a smart man

"The fact that the least conservative, least divisive Republican in the 2008 race is the last one standing -- despite being despised by significant voices on the right -- shows how little life is left in the movement that Goldwater began, Nixon brought into power, Ronald Reagan gave mass appeal, Newt Gingrich radicalized, Tom DeLay criminalized, and Bush allowed to break into pieces."

From an article in this week's New Yorker

Finished!

So last night I stayed up very late to finish Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, her excellent multi-biography of Abraham Lincoln and his war cabinet. I am very sad that Abraham Lincoln has left my life.

But, the book has me thinking about a lot of things...


One of them is James Mann's equally excellent chronicle of George Bush's war cabinet, Rise of the Vulcans. Could DKG's book be read as an implicit rebuke of W's management style? It details the way in which Lincoln assembled not only his three main rivals for the 1860 presidential nomination, but also a group of men with a wide range of viewpoints about the issues of the day; i.e., the Republican coalition of the time. Mann's book details the balancing act between Colin Powell, on the one hand, and the "neo-cons" (Wolfowitz, Cheney, etc., etc.) on the other hand. Condi Rice gets a lot of blame for being unable to smooth over this friction, but so does Bush. Lincoln managed, through a coolness of temper and a political sensitivity that no one alive today seems to possess, to balance these competing interests and harness the full potential of each of his cabinet officers. Maybe Bush isn't as much of a "decider" as he thinks he is. OR perhaps the problem was that there wasn't enough balance - there was just Powell vs. EVERYONE ELSE.

Another is the self-made man, something that I like to think I can identify with. But, moreover, I've been reading quite a few presidential biographies lately, and some of the best have come from very little (Lincoln and Truman, in particular). Ever Roosevelt, who never wanted for money, nearly lost his life to polio. And he had a messed up family, to boot.

And there's more - much more - on Lincoln. To come. Promise. Especially about rhetoric. And using stories to illustrate points.

If nothing else, read Team of Rivals. It's worth all 750 pages.

On Saturday night I went to see Iron Man, which was pretty good. Like Transformers, which was basically an ad for the US military and the automobile industry, there was a certain amount of weird post-9/11 jingoism in it, but Robert Downey, Jr. is (as always) really amazing. The friend who went with me said it was a movie for neo-cons, which might be true. At the very least the lothario-like Jeff Bridges was a parody of hawkish neo-con-ness.

Lincoln of the Day

"Meanwhile, we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to the great ends He ordains. Surely He intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay."



- From an 1863 to Eliza Gurney

Story craft, Statecraft

I just finished reading the NYTimes article on Obama's authorship, reminding me of yet another reason I love Barack Obama: His virtues are Odysseus' virtues. Using the full range of his multiplicities ("the man of many ways") while commanding a coherent, authentic singularity, full of (literary) devices, self-knowing, self-telling, savvy, he reveals his story for the utmost effect--to activate his audience. (And no, he doesn't fully control the narrative--his scars spill his story, too.) Yes, he's a natural and a thorough politician--and elevates the descriptor (more on this later...)

The Great Lakes Compact

Water issues are not confined to the American West.

Here's the website for the Great Lakes Water Compact.

More on water

This memo argues toward a locally-driven approach towards solving the water crisis in the Southwest, specifically in Phoenix, Arizona. The Colorado River is the primary water source for the metropolitan area. Decreasing snowfall and a shorter spring thaw in recent years have called into question the continued reliability of the river’s resources and Southwestern cities have begun to pioneer creative uses of their unstable water supply. Las Vegas, for example, grants rebates to homeowners for developing lawns “naturally.” In order to sustain the current rate of growth in the region, metropolitan areas must adopt “smart” policies such as these. Phoenix is currently the fifth-largest city in the United States, and the second-fastest growing after Las Vegas (the population has grown by more than 24% since 2000). In order to develop more intelligently, the city needs to adopt stringent and potentially unpopular conservation policies. As a first step, the city and state should ban further construction of golf courses, resort areas that unnecessarily consume large amounts of water.

In 1922, California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming entered into the Colorado River Compact. The Compact allocated acre-feet of annual river water flow to these states, based on population. It has been known for some time that the allocations were made during heavy flow years and that average annual flows are much lower; the states have arrived at compromises in their allocations as a result. But continued worries about climate change and a possible “perpetual drought” have reignited debates about the structure of the Compact. The combination of rapid growth in Las Vegas and the Phoenix area, as well as continued growth in southern California and the need to sustain a multi-million dollar agricultural industry in both Arizona and southern California, have stressed the system to the breaking point. Development in the region cannot continue at this pace: hydrologists estimate the level of Lake Mead, Las Vegas’s primary water source, will continue to fall: “…the enormous reservoir in Arizona and Nevada that supplies nearly all the water for Las Vegas…is half-empty, and statistical models indicate that it will never be full again” (The New York Times Magazine, October 21, 2007). Indeed, Lake Powell, which feeds Lake Mead, “could, if the drought continues, be empty by 2007” (Pearce 2006). If nothing else, urban development in the region has outpaced available water, and shifts in the American economy have begun to call into question the necessity of allocating to farms water that could go to homes.

Subsidized water for agriculture spurred the initial growth of these regions, and agriculture still acts as an economic spine. Long-standing public and private agreements dictate agribusiness’ water development rights. Historically these subsidies have been utilized to grow incredibly water-thirsty crops, such as citrus, avocados, cotton, and berries, adding additional strain to an overtaxed ecological system. Agriculture more and more finds itself displaced, both economically and in terms of water allocation, by the increased development of a suburban and urban “information economy.” Somehow, the Colorado River Compact needs to be revised. Doing so, though, requires careful balancing of an almost infinite number of interests: long-established urban and suburban centers like Los Angeles (and its resulting legislative clout), newer and rapidly growing cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas and the private investment pouring into those regions, housing advocates in those areas, agribusiness and the various local, state, and federal government agencies that have jurisdiction over the issue.

Phoenix used to draw much of its water from underground sources (Reisner 1986). In 1968, Congress authorized the construction of the Central Arizona Project, to draw water as part of the state’s Colorado River allocation. The CAP, completed finally in the mid-90s, is the most expensive water development project in the history of the United States. It provided a continuous water source for the Phoenix and Tucson areas and made possible the economic expansion of the region in the last decade. But the CAP is in a precarious political and environmental position. In order to appropriate funds for the project, the Arizona congressional delegation had to enter into a legislative deal with California: before the CAP could receive its allocation required by law, the state of California had to be provided its entire allocation, the largest in the system. Continual flow of water from the CAP is, of course, subject to the same environmental crises listed above, if not more so. Lake Havasu, the source for the CAP, is the last dammed reservoir on the river, and is thus dependent on the reservoirs of Lake Mead, Lake Powell, and additional reservoirs upriver.

Marc Reisner wrote in the mid-80s that the demand for CAP water was always an “article of faith.” The presence of CAP water helped fuel the rapid growth of Phoenix and the development of a tourism economy predicated in part on the ability to golf all year round. Nearly 35 golf courses exist in the city alone. Courses require extensive watering and irrigation to maintain the grasslands of the course in a region where the temperature reaches or exceeds 100 degrees an average of 89 days out of the year. In such high temperatures it is difficult if not impossible to “reclaim” this water. It simply evaporates. One could argue, then, that every gallon used to water a golf course disappears from the local cycle. No one will ever drink it and no crops can be grown from it. Development of the golf course industry has been one major aspect of “water-intensive” development in the region, which includes well-manicured lawns and swimming pools in homes. Banning further development of golf courses will probably not be a very popular decision, given the industry’s wealth and its economic importance to the region. However, Phoenix’s economy is by now sufficiently diversified that the city should be able to absorb the economic shift. Three Fortune 500 companies call the city their headquarters. The growth of Arizona State University in nearby Tempe provides both jobs and professional training. Golfing is furthermore a luxury industry, not a basic commodity essential to human survival – and as such an easy first sacrifice in the region’s efforts to conserve intelligently and manage its continued growth effectively.

Ultimately a national reckoning about the rapid development of a region dependent on a decreasingly viable natural resource must occur. Policymakers will be called to make difficult choices between the interests of agriculture (particularly growing water-thirsty crops in arid areas) and urban development, and between competing urban centers. These problems can be addressed pre-crisis, or they can be shelved until some point in the near future when Phoenix’s 1.5 million residents no longer have any drinking water. I contend that such a solution may only be possible from the local level upward, given the contentious issues between states and between states and the federal government. Municipalities, most directly and immediately threatened by scarce water resources, can more quickly and effectively adopt policies to address their immediate concerns, which can, in turn, exert pressure on state and federal officials. For Phoenix, curbing and eventually eliminating the development of a water-hungry luxury industry is a sensible initial step.

Works Discussed

Gerter, John. “The Future is Drying Up.” The New York Times Magazine; October 21, 2007.

Pearce, Fred. When the Rivers Run Dry. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006.

Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert. New York: Penguin, 1986

The politics of water

Water politics is something else I love, and will comment about with some frequency. Here's something I once wrote about water.

I first read Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert during a vacation to San Francisco in the summer of 2005. I was staying with the family of a friend from college and asked for a recommendation for a “good book about California history.” My friend’s father, a lifelong San Franciscan from an old California family, suggested the title. Reisner traces the twin history of Western settlement and development and the “cultivation” of the West’s water resources. He describes the unavoidable and absolutely necessary connection between the two, beginning with John Wesley Powell in the 1860s and 70s to the end of the dam-building boom in the late 1970s-early 1980s. Reisner’s book and the additional reading that followed have compelled me to the academic and political study of the locus of politics and water. Water is a necessary commodity in crisis on a national and international scale. Of course human beings cannot survive without water, but water also drives the production of goods – energy, food, manufacture – that are keys to civilization’s survival. Demographic shifts in the United States have seen the greatest growth in the regions with the least amounts of water: California, Texas, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, the fastest-growing cities in the United States, and decreasing snowfall and a shorter spring thaw in recent years have called into question the continued reliability of these regions’ water sources. These issues come to a dramatic head around the Colorado River, which provides water for these major cities and the agriculture of the region. The Colorado River Compact, which allocates annual flow of the river, needs to be revised to reflect more realistic estimates of annual river flow in the context of global climate change; to address the increasingly urban population changes; to reflect surges in growth in Las Vegas and Arizona in particular; to reconcile shifts in the national and regional economy from agriculture to information. These policy questions need immediate attention from well-trained public servants.

Here's another thing I wrote about Barack Obama (at some point, we will post about something else)

Most importantly, though, I hope to dedicate my life to public service, and this program would be a first step in that direction. I recently finished reading Dean Acheson’s Present at the Creation. Upon taking his leave from his State Department colleagues, Acheson remarked: “…other men who have served in important positions…have been moved by the same tradition of public service. It is only by that that a democracy, a republic like ours, can live.” Acheson displayed careful thinking, a long grasp of history, and a soundness of judgment during his tenure. I cannot think of a better model to emulate, or a statesman who understood better the importance of harnessing skills of critical inquiry towards addressing the concerns of policy. Moreover, Acheson's comments echo the founding documents of this country, from the Declaration of Independence to the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. Senator Obama’s campaign, and this fellowship, are grounded in the selfsame principles of our founding documents: that individual citizens, acting in concert, direct the progress and future of this country. It is not only my hope, but my responsibility, to learn the skills necessary to work towards this communion.

Lincoln of the Day

"Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."

Cooper Institute Speech, New York, 1860

Lincoln of the Day

From the Emancipation Proclamation:
"And upon this act sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God."

We love Barack Obama

Here is something I wrote about him:

What really changed my mind is what I have loved about Senator Obama since I first heard about him in the early part of this decade. He gives voice to my generation’s search for purpose. Over the last several months I have read several presidential biographies and works of history about periods of great crisis in American history – two biographies of Lincoln, a biography of Franklin Roosevelt, one of Harry Truman, and Dean Acheson’s memoirs of his term as secretary of state. I am interested in this literature not just because of the impact these men had on the history of this country, but because these periods of crisis serve as clarifying moments in our national narrative. Political lines become exposed, then soften, and these leaders responded to these critical moments by articulating a sense of purpose for a country built upon an idea: Lincoln’s command of men and language and grasp of history taught us, among other things, that the Union is an intellectual concept rooted in the idea of intrinsic human value as espoused in the Declaration of Independence. The United States does not face a serious existential crisis as it did during the Civil War, the Depression, or World War II, but the global and domestic political and economic problems that my generation will face are weighty. Senator Obama should be the next president because he speaks in a language of national unity and destiny and purpose that transcends the mendacity of our current political process and exhorts us to confront those challenges with purpose and determination, in the footsteps of our greatest leaders. If I can do anything to make this possible, I owe it to myself, my country, and its future, to do so.