braham Lincoln’s father ridiculed and abused him, and the young Lincoln was surrounded by physical cruelty, especially towards animals – part of life on the American frontier. Yet when, as an adolescent, he was asked to kill a snake, he replied: “It enjoys living just the same as we do.” The response shows a commitment to behaving in the way that Lincoln had decided was right, no matter what other people thought.
After a lifetime of reading Lincoln, what I have learned is that you can choose happiness, and that most of our happiness is based on following the better angels of our nature. It astonishes me how often Lincoln was honest when it would have been easier for him not to have been. Running for the Illinois state legislature, he said he stood “for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burthens” – a Jacksonian bromide that was expected. And then, though no one was asking, he offered the following sentence: “Consequently I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).”
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