Lincoln and the Dirty Business of Politics
Appealing to rightness and reason is rarely enough to achieve big things. Politics requires dealing with human beings, and human beings are flawed.
January 10, 2013 •
"The greatest measure of the nineteenth century. Passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America." These lines, from the movie "Lincoln," capture an elemental truth about politics. They are spoken by the leader of the Radical Republicans, Thaddeus Stephens, as he hands the official copy of the freshly adopted 13th Amendment abolishing slavery to his housekeeper, Lydia Smith, a black woman who is also his lover.