Abraham Lincoln Quotes
Suspicions which may be unjust need not be stated.
This Quatrain amazingly preceded Tennyson’s expression of the same idea by almost 1000 years. See {620306}. At the time this was written Islam was entering the flower of its intellectual height where one could express doubt and be a religious dissident and not be murdered or even censored in many Muslim communities. At that time Islamic science, mathematics, philosophy, and literature was well in advance of Christian Europe. However, a hundred years later, the Islamic world went through a “Closing” where all new ideas became suspect and the religion and culture became stultified and Europe advanced while the Islamic world ceased its creative intellectual development.
He realized that too many accusers in a hearing or trial can give the appearance of overwhelming resources being brought to bear and develop sympathy for the accused and possibly create a martyr.
This was a pointed criticism of McCarthyism and his red scare and red-baiting behavior. Others were cowed by the risk that any criticism of McCarthy’s methods would bring an accusation that the critic was a Communist which all too often would mean loss of a job and social isolation. However as a Federal Judge, the lifetime tenure protection of his position could lead to impeachment which would be brought and tried by a Congress that was itself intimidated by McCarthy. He was one of the relatively few courageous Americans who risked exposing McCarthy who turned out to be an alcoholic bully and consummate liar.
After the Korean War there was a complex web of economic controls in place. Treasury Secretary George M. Humphrey led the cabinet faction urging rapid removal of the controls while others argued the opposite position. The President went along with his Treasury Secretary:
Abraham Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
