Lincoln's birthday.
Does anyone pay attention to Old Abe anymore? His birthday is rolled into "President's Day" now and the day is just another sale at a department store that no one cares about. School textbooks give him a couple of pages I guess still, freed the slaves, gettysburg address, shot by Booth. Some may know that he was ugly as sin, had a psycho wife and walked five miles to return a penny or something like that.
But there is so much more. Fighting the Civil War was not a popular cause even in the North. A majority of Northerners could have cared less about the causes Lincoln was using to fight the war. Had he governed by "opinion polls" he would have let the South go. Had he worried about his "job performance ratings" which would have been in the single digits, he would have made no stand.
However he believed in things larger than the passions of the moment. His words, his ideas, his ability to rise above the partisan bickering are a lesson to us all today.
We certainly among those seeking the office today, have no one with these talents and ability. Indeed, those who are of that level do not gravitate towards politics anymore. Today you have to kiss the right asses and spew the proper rhetoric or be wealthy before you can rise in politics.
Anyway, happy birthday Abe Lincoln. And thanks for holding it all together when we needed it most.