Abraham Lincoln



"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address

That guy who won the American Civil War, proclaimed the slaves free, delivered the Gettysburg Address and was shot dead at the theatre. He's also known for wearing a top hat and being very tall (the tallest president, in fact, at six feet four inches), and when he for a brief time took direct control of the Union army, showed himself to be a talented military strategist as well. A genial and charming speaker, Lincoln had an uncanny ability to explain complex issues in layman's terms, and his speeches are among the most famous in American history. Considered an untested and possibly radical figure, he is famous for Growing the Beard in office. In many ways he's the only post-Founding Fathers/ pre-Teddy Roosevelt President who's thought of at all. He is almost universally considered to be one of the greatest (if not the greatest) Presidents in American history.

Emphasis on "almost." There is a minority of Lost Cause followers, neo-Confederates, libertarians and anti-federalists who hold different views on the man, claiming that he was a dictatorial leader who trampled on civil liberties and states' rights, set the stage for the centralization of power in America, and launched the American Civil War not out of his moral opposition to slavery, but to maintain his own power base. There are also a number of folks who think Abe Lincoln was a fundamentally good guy, and had the nation's best interests at heart, but that (the rest of) America would be better off today if he had let the South go, arguing that the North and the South are two fundamentally different places. In addition, he had won the election without a single Southern electoral vote -- in some states, he wasn't even on the ballot. (The South was pretty miffed over his opposition to slavery.) He was pretty widely reviled and despised among certain segments of the Northern population as well- particularly Irish-Americans, who alleged (with some justification) that they were being used as cannon fodder for "Lincoln's War".

It is also relevant, if somewhat uncomfortable to admit, that Lincoln was by today's standards a racist. He considered blacks to be inferior to whites. Though he opposed slavery, he was willing at least in principle to allow slavery to continue, believing that it would end on its own. Early in his Presidency he said that he would back any solution to the slavery question that preserved the Union, whether it was freeing all the slaves, freeing none of them, or freeing some and leaving others enslaved. His anti-slavery views became stronger over time, however, eventually crystallizing in two famous quotes: "In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free," and "Whenever I hear anyone arguing over slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." By the end of his Presidency, he clearly regared blacks quite highly and on April 11, 1865, Lincoln gave a speech in which he promoted voting rights for blacks.

His memorial in DC is a very popular spot for "inspirational" moments in media, and is much hardier than most other memorials. He is also the only non-British Empire citizen to have his statue in Parliament Square in London.

Was famously born in a log cabin, but not the one you can get tours of (despite what the guides will tell you); that one was built 8 years after he was born. As Stephen Fry once put it, it is dangerously close to the legendary schoolboy gaffe, "Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin he built with his own hands."

It is also said that his ghost haunts The White House. His presence is sometimes made clear by appearing, if briefly, before some Presidents and other guests during times of great crisis.

Incidentally, in contrast to most modern-day "deep and smooth" depictions, Lincoln's voice was actually somewhat high-pitched and nasal. For something approaching what's considered to be more accurate, consider this feature, filmed for Time Magazine.

The last living person to witness Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theater was Samuel J. Seymour, who sat in the balcony box across from the Lincolns at age five, and appeared on the game show I've Got A Secret to relate his story 91 years later in 1956. He died several months later.

One of the things which allegedly mellowed Lincoln out on the issue of race was his unlikely friendship with escaped slave and civil rights leader Frederick Douglass, along with the extreme polarization of the public on the issue, as hundreds of thousands died During the War. After unexpectedly winning re-election in a stunning turnaround, in his Second Inaugural Address (only slightly longer than the one at Gettysburg) Lincoln famously delivered one of the greatest speeches of all time.

Lincoln's Speech (excerpt)
"And the war came."

"All knew that (slavery) was somehow the cause of the war... It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. ..."Woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come... and that He gives to (us) this terrible war as the woe due... Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether!""

Note that he went on to say:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, (let us) bind up the nation's wounds..."

But given the foregoing, he could have just as easily finished up with:

"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers! And you shall know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you!"

The war was won weeks later. Coincidence? Perhaps not.

Fact: Abraham Lincoln can and, if needed, will, beat you in a fight. Even if you're Batman. Or Bigfoot. In some ways, Abraham Lincoln is almost as much a Memetic Badass as Chuck Norris. In fact, this is where you can go to watch them have a rap battle. Some would count him as the only president to be more Badass than Theodore Roosevelt (and maybe Andrew Jackson, if you ignore the politics). On the other hand, Cracked doesn't even count him among the top five, though the same author later acknowledged the oversight and made an article devoted strictly to Lincoln called Abraham Lincoln: Portrait Of A Crazy Badass. It really depends on how much weight you give the Badass Beard.

Also Fact: In 1842 Abraham Lincoln was once challenged to a duel by political rival James Shields. In dueling, the challenged party selects the place of the duel, and the weapons to be used. Since Lincoln felt the situation was ridiculous he stated that he wanted to use "Cavalry Broadswords of the largest size". He also added that he wanted the duel to be carried out in a pit 10 feet wide by 12 feet deep with a large wooden plank dividing the square in which no man was allowed to set foot over. Shields was going to go through with it, but then saw Lincoln clearing branches with a broadsword and realized how insane the situation had became and backed down.
 * NB: The fencing treatise "By the Sword" notes that Lincoln's apparently ridiculous rules for the duel belie a cunning tactician's mind: By choosing long, heavy weapons and dividing the dueling ground to prevent his opponent from closing distance, the much taller Lincoln ensured that he--with his nearly 6 inch longer reach--could attack with impunity and/or (more likely) effectively stalemate the duel without drawing blood.
 * NBB: Lincoln felt the situation was so ridiculous that, when Shields first challenged Lincoln to choose the duelling weapons, Lincoln initially chose "cow pies." Lincoln only switched to broadswords when Shields rejected this idea.

Also Also Fact: Abraham Lincoln, 140 years before its first usage in ECW, frickin' invented the chokeslam. During his youth as a "wrassler", one of Lincoln's opponents made the mistake of stomping on Lincoln's instep with the heel of his boot. As recounted by noted Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg, "This exasperated Lincoln so that he lost his temper, lifted Armstrong up by the throat and off the ground, shook him like a rag, and then slammed him to a hard fall, flat on his back."

Lincoln is also one of the few presidents to have an aircraft carrier named after him.

For a one-minute summary of his life along with a picture of him as a Cyborg Zombie watch this video.

"(Fry and another robot come upon a robotic Abraham Lincoln.) Fry: Lemme guess. He thinks he's Lincoln. Robot: Well he's supposed to. The problem is he's got multiple personalities, all of them Lincoln. Robo-Lincoln: I was born in 200 log cabins."
 * The webcomic Thinkin' Lincoln.
 * In a few of the Flashman books, Lincoln appears as a rare example of a Magnificent Bastard with completely good motives who also has some similarity with the "Atticus Finch" "simple country lawyer" type.
 * A clone of Abraham Lincoln is the main protagonist of Clone High. Due to the circumstances of the series, he's best friends with Gandhi and Joan of Arc and dates Cleopatra.
 * Lincoln is the president who gives The Amazing Screw On Head his orders in the graphic novel by Mike Mignola.
 * Lincoln was one of the former identities of The Immortal in Invincible.
 * The video for the Electric Six song "Gay Bar."
 * Because he's gonna take you to the gay bar.
 * Lincoln is one of Bill and Ted's collection of historical figures in Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure.
 * Lincoln is a Badass Cursed with Awesome Zombie Harrowed MIB in Deadlands.
 * The backstory of Task Force: VALKYRIE in Hunter: The Vigil starts with the abduction of Abraham Lincoln by supernatural creatures in 1864. He was killed during the retrieval, and it was a substitute that took the bullet to the head in Ford's Theatre.
 * In one episode of Supernews, a sketch involved President Obama, after running out of ideas on how to fix the economy, having his entire cabinet dig up Abe's body, insert all the stem cells they could find, and see what happened. He beat up the head of AIG.
 * He has a lightsaber duel with George W. Bush in Robot Chicken. He's also voiced by Hulk Hogan.
 * The web cartoon Hard Drinkin' Lincoln has a drunken Lincoln causing ridiculous amounts of trouble in office.
 * Futurama, in a robot mental hospital:

"Statue Lincoln: (speaking for the first time) "It appears we are evenly matched.""
 * Not to mention Evil Holographic Lincoln, as seen when the Holoshed on the Nimbus goes on the fritz again.
 * The whacked-out Chinese movie Fantasy Mission Force opens with several World War II generals being captured. One of them is Lincoln. And he clearly identifies himself as such - even in the original Chinese.
 * In the 1939 film, Young Mr Lincoln, he's portrayed by Henry Fonda.
 * Gore Vidal's bestselling historical novel Lincoln takes place over the span of the Civil War. The book doesn't presume to know what Lincoln is thinking, instead switching between the perspectives of his advisers (plus John Wilkes Booth's accomplice). The author caught the ire of historians for including third-party anecdotes regarding Abe's bout with syphilis, among other things. Vidal's rebuttal was that U.S. Historians tend to gloss over the imperfections of their idols, leaving us with only a faint impression of the men they really were.
 * A new Diet Mountain Dew ad has Lincoln as a professional wrestler.
 * He was an amateur.
 * He is still the President in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.
 * In Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, He popped out of his grave, took an AK-47 out from under his hat, and blew Batman away with a rat-a-tat-tat, but he ran out of bullets and ran away 'cause Optimus Prime arrived to save the day.
 * He soon came back with a machete, but got tripped by Indiana Jones with his whip. Later, he tried to pole-vault onto Optimus Prime, but collided with Jackie Chan in the air. Then they both got hit by a Care Bear Stare.
 * Tyler Durden of Fight Club wants to fight him, because he's a big guy, with big reach. And besides, skinny guys fight 'til they're burger.
 * He becomes an unlockable character in the Video Game version.
 * A painting of Lincoln--with the word "Nigger" scrawled across it--is the source of much controversy in the first arc of Ex Machina.
 * Since the musical Assassins deals with presidential assassinations, Lincoln naturally makes an appearance.
 * Abraham Lincoln was summoned to take part in a duel to the death between good and bad factions in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Savage Curtain". Sadly, he was among the first to die.
 * To be fair, it took a Klingon (in fact, Kahless the Unforgettable, who is effectively the Klingon Messiah) to do the job.
 * A giant statue of Abraham Lincoln, actually from the Memorial to said man, is the Antagonist in one of the Sam and Max Freelance Police episodes. He appears later as merely a giant head and falls in love with one of Sam and Max's neighbours, Sybil Pandemik.  A running gag in the series is that he claims not to be one good for speeches; he had absolutely nothing prepared when he made the Gettysburg Address, and was just winging it at the time. At one point in the second season the real Lincoln appears as a zombie.
 * Similarly, one episode of Dexter's Laboratory has Dexter animate Lincoln's head from the Mount Rushmore memorial into a Humongous Golem, to do battle with the giant George Washington his rival Mandark created. To make a long story short...

""Every Lincoln's Birthday reminds me of my old girlfriend back in Nebraska...Gina Statutory. She went to Lincoln High, and was voted Miss Lincoln...because every guy in school took a shot at her in the balcony.""
 * The "Statue of Lincoln comes to life" subtrope even has an Animal Superheroes version; in one issue of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!, a villain animates a statue of "Abraham Linkidd" (who is a goat, in case you were wondering).
 * "No one can stop Time Lincoln. No one ever-"
 * Appears in the Time Squad episode where he got fed up for being so honest and starts joining prankster gangs while calling himself 'Dishonest Abe'. He got better.
 * Also mentioned in the Buffalo Bill episode as having apparently won the election by using his third eye to hypnotize his opponent.
 * Lincoln is the leader of America in Civilization 1, 2 and 3. He is added as a leader in an Expansion Pack for Civilization 4.
 * In the Beyond The Sword expansion pack to 4, the intro cinematic shows him briefly giving the Gettysburg Address. This then Match Cuts to the Lincoln Memorial, where Cold War-era spies are going about their business.
 * One of the subplots of Fallout 3 is the struggle between slavers and freedmen to control Lincoln's legacy. Several of his artifacts, including his hat and rifle, can be found and equipped in the game.
 * Gunning down slavers while role-playing as zombie Lincoln isn't too gimped a build, either.
 * South Park. Cult leader David Blaine brought the Lincoln statue to life. Jesus and friends defeated it by building and animating a John Wilkes Boothe statue.
 * Family Guy. There was this Biblical joke about "Abraham (Lincoln) killing Isaac (the bartender from The Love Boat)"
 * Another episode showed that Booth killed him for talking on his cellphone during the play.
 * A parody of Mentos ads involved Booth shooting through his hat. Cut to the Griffins watching it, and most of them question whether the ad even had a message. Peter then stands up, and walks off while saying (as if hypnotized), "Must... kill... Lincoln...."
 * In the episode "Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater", Peter finds a bunch of photos that show Lincoln, (among with other 19th century politicans) visiting a brothel.
 * From the opening of Police Squad!: "...And Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln!", which leads to a brief shot of Lincoln firing back at John Wilkes Booth.
 * One of Bob Newhart's early routines, "Abraham Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue", satirically juxtaposes the cynical marketing of modern political candidates with Lincoln's honesty.
 * Lincoln appears briefly in two episodes of the original Twilight Zone set during the American Civil War, "Back There" and "The Passersby".
 * In Gangs of New York, an actor portrays him in a production of Uncle Tom's Cabin and he is greeted with jeers, food throwing, and shouts of "Down with the Union!" This is a pretty good reflection of how working-class New Yorkers actually felt about President Lincoln; New York City mayor Fernando Wood even proposed that the city secede from the Union and become an independent country.
 * A whole episode of Touched By an Angel features his assassination, with Monica and Tess working as his seamstresses and Andrew meeting up with and trying to redeem John Wilkes Booth.
 * Raymond Massey had a popular, Oscar-nominated turn as Lincoln in the 1940 film Abe Lincoln in Illinois. If you ever see Massey in anything and think "that guy sounds like Abraham Lincoln", that's because the popular conception of Lincoln's molasses-like voice stems from Massey's performance.
 * A reassembled and reanimated Lincoln puts in an appearance as the dreaded dictatorial leader of the land of Monstru, Lincolnstein, in the webcomic Monster Commute.
 * In CSA: Confederate States of America, he loses the Civil War. He attempts to flee to Canada with Harriet Tubman disguised as a black man, but is captured by Confederate forces. After a two year imprisonment, Jefferson Davis, hoping to ease tension in the newly conqured North, pardons him and exiles him to Canada, where he dies a lonely man in the early 1900s. All history remembers him for is being the man that lost "the War of Northern Agression".
 * In a skit on the Sketch Comedy The Whitest Kids U' Know, Lincoln is presented as having been very loud and obnoxious at Ford's Theatre. When John Wilkes Boothe asks him to be quiet, Abe begins mercilessly taunting him. Boothe finally snaps, and shoots Lincoln beats his ass with a hammer.
 * One of the plots in the NUMA Series book Sahara concerns Lincoln.
 * A major character, and a surprisingly sympathetic one, in the outrageously racist 1915 film Birth of a Nation.
 * In the Alternate History novel How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove, Lincoln is a main character (having been a one-term president after losing the Civil War). Inspired by the writings of Marx, Lincoln becomes a travelling speaker lecturing about the rights of man and the benefits of socialism. Lincoln also leads a faction of the splintering Republican Party into defecting to the Socialist Party, causing the Socialists to eventually eclipse the Republicans as one of the nation's two major political parties.
 * Lincoln plays a smaller part in Turtledove's The Guns of the South, where he surrenders after the Confederates, equipped with AK-47s by time travelers, win the war. The next (and last) time we see him is April 15, 1865, where he delivers a speech trying to convince Kentucky to stay with the United States; this date is, as pointed out later in the book, the day he was assassinated in the regular timeline.
 * When the time travelers try to assassinate newly inaugurated Confederate President Robert E. Lee, killing his wife, Lincoln sends a telegram saying his prayers are with Lee "and your country in your hour of sorrow." Lee, who respects Lincoln, cherishes this message.
 * One of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show monologues essentially involved puns based on "Lincoln".


 * On Late Night with Conan O'Brien, a common skit involved Conan checking out wacky (and obviously fake) channels from all around the world. One of the most memorable of these channels is the Abraham Lincoln Money Shot Channel, which is an entire channel devoted to, you guessed it, shots of Honest Abe, a-hem, finishing his business.
 * In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, a Funny Background Event is Lincoln fighting a woolly mammoth with a chainsaw.
 * Dealt in Lead takes place in a very strange world, where the Lich-Emperor Abraham Lincoln has risen from the dead to continue the war against the south.
 * In the novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter he...well, you can probably work out the rest.
 * In Englishman it transpires that the Lincoln who was assassinated was a decoy, to cover up for the fact that he had been abducted by aliens. He makes his return and resumes his second term as President.
 * In Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian the statue from the Lincoln Memorial comes to life.
 * In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jefferson Smith goes to the Lincoln Memorial several times.
 * Visits to the Lincoln Memorial are practically a Trope in their own right.
 * Abraham Lincoln: EXPLOSION GOD
 * In the Adventure Time pilot, Abraham Lincoln transports Finn's mind back in time. And to Mars.
 * He is considered as one of the three people (along with Elvis Presley and Bigfoot) as the real identity of Batman in The Dark Knight.
 * The Venture Brothers meet Lincoln's ghost.
 * In the Wild Wild West movie, Dr. Loveless makes a grand appearance at his party by hiding inside a statue of Lincoln, whose head explodes.
 * The Simpsons Halloween Episode "How To Succeed In Dead-vertising" implied he was gay.
 * In addition, the episode "Bart to the Future" is based around a vision Bart has where, thirty years down the road, Lisa is president. Living with her in the White House, Homer becomes obsessed with finding the treasure Lincoln supposedly buried on the grounds.
 * Grandpa Abe was named after Lincoln after he helped Abe's grandmother and a runaway slave (eventually husband) run away to Canada.
 * In Team Fortress 2, he was the original Pyro.
 * Possibly even the current one.
 * The Red Dwarf episode "Meltdown" features waxwork creations representing various famous people from history; one of these is Lincoln.
 * In Decades of Darkness, Lincoln's family moved from Kentucky to New England soon after his birth, and he eventually becomes President of the Republic of New England, though the fact he is limited to a single four-year term means he doesn't achieve all he wanted in office. In an Allohistorical Allusion, while he is in power, the rump United States is governed by President Jefferson Davis, and the two men are rivals. However, when Davis is assassinated, Lincoln attends his funeral.
 * According to the backstory of Assassin's Creed, Booth was killed off by the Assassin Order, implying that Lincoln may have affiliations with the Assassins himself.
 * In one episode of Father Ted, Dougal, in a delusional state due to extreme hunger, sees Ted in a Lincoln costume.
 * At the climax of Black Dynamite, when Richard Nixon grabs John Wilkes Booth's pistol to shoot BD, the ghost of Lincoln appears and kung-fus the gun out of Nixon's hand.
 * Appeared in an episode of Animaniacs where, after he signed their autograph book, the Warner siblings helped him to compose the Gettysburg Address. For bonus points, he sounds exactly the same here as he did in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.
 * Lincoln appeared in a picture in every single ending credits for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, inexplicably lighting a wooden rocket that the protagonists are riding in. This is expanded in the fictitious backstory that Shake provided for the group in The Movie, where this incarnation of Lincoln is known as "Time Lincoln," who aided the heroes after they escaped from Egypt.
 * In The Master of Disguise, Pistachio's grandfather tells about how the Disguisey family made impact on history. Abraham Lincoln was such a boring speaker, so a disguised Lincoln helped him become elected president by partying and dancing while I Like to Move It by Reel to Real is played.
 * In Axe Cop, the eponymous character brought Lincoln back to life, had him place a bomb in every bad guy, turned him into a girl and married him.
 * Lincoln's Dreams, a novel by Connie Willis, has Lincoln's dreams of his own assassination as a major plot point.
 * Will next be played by Daniel Day Lewis in Steven Spielberg's long-gestating biopic Lincoln, opposite Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Sally Field.
 * In Babylon 5, when Centauri Vir Cotto sets up an "underground railway" of sorts to smuggle Narns off their occupied homeworld, he creates a fake Centauri noble named "Abrahamo Lincolni" to expedite matters. The name fools the other Centauri (most of whom don't know anything about Earth history), but the humans who run across it burst out laughing.
 * The ending of Conduit 2 has
 * Fred Saberhagen wrote one book in which time travelers seek to kidnap Lincoln from the instant before his assassination, leaving a convincing dummy in his place (they want him to be an inspirational figure in a troubled future). The kidnap attempt goes wrong, alerting the President to John Wilkes Booth's attack -- and he picks Booth up and hurls him out of the theater box onto the stage. Fortunately, the time travelers recruited the main character because he has a psychic Reset Button power, so he can "rewind time" and try the kidnapping again.