Giving Lincoln A Chance

YOU HAVE TO GIVE a person a chance. I was raised to believe that, and I still do. That's why I gave Trump a chance. At my local small town in the south senior center, an eighty five year old rebel, fossil from the Jim Crow south, proclaimed one day that Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln were the two sorriest presidents we ever had. I didn't, but should have responded that Abraham Lincoln could have been the best, was potentially the best friend the south ever had, had the south allowed it, had the south given Lincoln a chance. He was elected fair and square, but the very minute he was elected, the states in the Confederacy started to secede, before Lincoln was even sworn in as president, or even had a chance to do anything as president to show his attitude towards the south. In face, if Lincoln had had the chance, he would have entered the White House very conciliatory towards the south, defending their right to self determination, and that ending slavery was a matter for the states in which it existed, not the federal government. The southern states would have found out: Abraham Lincoln was a man you could talk to, who would listen, and try to see your point of view. But, they never gave him the chance. So, the Confederacy started the unnecessary Civil War, and when it was over, one of the southern people, defeated, devastated, and angry, killed Lincoln. Lincoln's plan was to be conciliatory, forgiving, ready to reunite the country in brotherly love, but because he was killed, the new president, Andrew Johnson hated the Confederacy, and the rest, the horrible history of reconstruction, is history, as they say. Again, for the second time, the south did not give Abraham Lincoln a chance, and paid dearly because of it. Of course, you have to know who to trust, and, really, you never can. So, shouldn't we modern Americans give each other a chance, if nothing else? I have grown particularly impatient with conservative Christian types who refuse to accept either evolution or climate change, both of which are fact. I must at least give them a chance to change.