Lincoln's America 2.0

Matthew Pinsker's extremely useful essay alerts us to, among other things, digital sources that promise fresh ways to understand Abraham Lincoln. Thanks to the work of dedicated scholars and librarians, we also find ourselves in possession of millions of digital words, statistics, and images about the America in which Lincoln lived. The challenge now is to find meaning, coherence, and pattern in that abundance. For most people at the time, far from battles or capitals, the Civil War arrived in long gray columns of text. A new system of telegraph stations, railroads, and press organizations spread words with unprecedented speed and in enormous quantity. Reports from the battlefield poured out in brief messages and long torrents, editorials commenting on every event and utterance. Even generals and presidents understood the shape and meaning of the Civil War through print. Newspapers expressed and molded public opinion daily, and Lincoln realized fully how much this public opinion mattered. “Public sentiment is every thing,” he said. “With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.”1

Epistemology · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Media studies · Newspaper · Nothing · Political science · Politics · Possession (linguistics) · Public opinion · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · American Constitutional Law and Politics · American History and Culture · American Sports and Literature · History · Law · Philosophy

• Public Sentiment Is Everything

  Menahem Blondheim•Journal of American History•2002

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