This month is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln is not the offspring of a people’s revolution.  The ordinary play of the electoral system, unaware of the great tasks it was destined to fulfill, bore him to the summit – a plebian, who made his way from stone-splitter to senator in Illinois, a man without intellectual brilliance, without special greatness of character, without exceptional importance – an average man of good will.  Never has the New World scored a greater victory than in the demonstration that with its political and social organization, average men of good will suffice to do that which in the Old World would have required heroes to do!“

Karl Marx [1862-10-12]: “On events in North America.” Die Presse, Vienna.