I share the admiration of Abraham Lincoln with most Americans; in surveys conducted since 1940, Lincoln has consistently ranked among the top 3, most often #1. Abe was the only President to hold a patent; he signed the first of the Homestead Acts, allowing poor people to obtain land.
Lincoln founded the United States Department of Agriculture in 1862 and, nearly two months later, signed the Morrill Act, which led to the creation of our land-grant university system. He established the principle that U.S. income tax must have a progressive nature. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery in the U.S. He led the creation of the U.S. National Banking System, thus, our national currency. Overall, apart from banks, Lincoln helped the economy flourish by supporting the building of canals, railroads, and factories. He led the Union to victory in the Civil War; he laid the foundation for Reconstruction, and in doing so, Lincoln worked to keep us from being a ‘nation divided.”
Recently I had the chance to travel a significant portion of The Lincoln Highway. It starts miles north of Julesburg and ends in San Francisco. This highway is America’s first national memorial to President Abraham Lincoln. It predates the 1922 dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., by nine years. As the first automobile road across America, the Lincoln Highway brought great prosperity to the hundreds of cities, towns, and villages along the way. The Lincoln Highway became affectionately known as “The Main Street Across America.”
Just east of Laramie, a monument to our 16th President marks the high point of this Atlantic-to-Pacific highway, which begins in Times Square in NYC and terminates near Lincoln Park in San Francisco. Under the vast Wyoming sky centered in a “rest area,” an imposing bronze of Lincoln displays a plaque. It reads: “We Must Think Anew and Act Anew.“
Those seven words set the tone for my next 24 hours of driving. It was a time to reflect on our national priorities today through the eyes of Lincoln as I enjoyed the ease of traveling the Eisenhower Interstate System. I passed by farms and ranches established under the Homestead Act, having sustained themselves through the early research efforts in our land-grant university system and the Ag Extension network. I used the convenience of an ATM to make electronic swipes at cash registers tied to our national banking system. I listened to Satellite radio, enjoying instant, global communication.
But I wondered: What would Lincoln be thinking today? Would Abe go big or go home?
As I scanned the radio dial, I listened to Senate Minority Leader McConnell say he’s 100% focused on blocking the efforts of the Biden Administration; hardly a “we must think anew and act anew” moment for a man (and a party) who claims to be the party of Lincoln.
Abe wouldn’t have been a shrinking violet held captive by zealots. Abe would have been uncompromising in the face of our challenges. President Lincoln would have gone big. He would have been a champion of infrastructure.
Abe would be supporting a robust public education system. He would focus his priorities on the Middle Class who built America. He would be unyielding in his belief that “labor before capital” was the only way to make a just, sustainable economic system.
Lincoln would understand that a nation that survived The Great Depression thanks to progressives and The New Deal that defeated fascism; rebuilt western Europe; eradicated polio; electrified rural America; put a man on the Moon, and; a spacecraft on Mars is more than capable of meeting the challenges of a 21st-century economy. Lincoln would stand by his belief that “the best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Now is our time to create.
Author Michael Bowman is a Colorado agriculturalist and longtime advocate for federal policies that strengthen rural communities and focus on alternative crops, natural resource sustainability, soil health, renewable energy, and environmental markets.