Joe Posnanski

This figures to be the only post we’ll ever write about Abraham Lincoln. I mean, obviously this is just a goofy blog written by a goofy sportswriter. On most days the most significant questions to be asked here will be something like: “Do you remember the old electronic game Merlin?*”

* Merlin was a sort of our 1970s version of a mini-computer game. It was shaped kind of like a phone, and it had nine little touchstone circles in the front that, when pressed with enough force, lit up. You could play nine different games on Merlin, which to us made it some sort of more perfect technological marvel, though, looking back on it, the nine games all pretty much resembled Tic Tac Toe. It also had a very catchy little commercial theme song:

“Where’s Merlin Now?
He’s not there.
He’s out with Billy Playing Magic Square!**”

** Magic Square, in the mystic chords of my memory, was a lot like Tic Tac Toe.

Anyway, this post is not about Lincoln the man or the politician or the historical figure (one doctor is now suggesting that Lincoln had cancer when he was assassinated which, if true, is the longest any doctor has ever taken to come up with a diagnosis. Second longest on record: Doctors determining what’s wrong with Chiefs running back Larry Johnson’s foot). This is about writing. Lincoln was an amazing writer. If you are at all interested in this, I cannot recommend more highly Douglas L. Wilson’s terrific book Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words. It’s pretty fascinating stuff, even to someone who has it on a bookshelf next to: “Sam, Sipe & Company.”

In Lincoln’s Sword there is a chapter written about how Lincoln came to write the First Inaugural (and many of his other famous speeches). And here, perhaps better than anyplace I’ve ever seen, you can see how words become art.

Lincoln’s Secretary of State William H. Seward was a longtime politician and many (including Seward himself) thought that he, not Lincoln, would and should become president. The relationship of Seward and Lincoln is probably worth a book (and I’m sure that book has been written at least 800 times — haven’t read those), but the point here is that Seward suggested a closing paragraph for the First Inaugural. You know the situation — the South was seceding from the Union, the new President was trying to keep the country together, etc. Here’s Seward’s paragraph:

“I close. We are not, we must not be aliens or enemies but fellow countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I’m sure they will not be broken. The mystic chords which proceeding from so many battle fields and so many patriot graves pass through all our hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation.”

That’s actually pretty good, certainly a better, more inspiring, more compelling paragraph than we have heard from presidents in recent years. But Lincoln, seizing upon a few of those words and ideas, turned it into something for the ages:

“I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Brilliant, no? Turned: “We must not be aliens or enemies but fellow countrymen and brethren” into “We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies.”

Turned: “The mystic chords” into “The mystic chords of memory.”

Turned: “When breathed up by the guardian angel of the nation” into “when touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

And so on. A few changes, a few simplifications, a couple of clarifications, and Lincoln turned another’s suggestions and thoughts into something haunting and timeless.