SELIBER: Lincoln’s leadership

On Monday Sept. 22 in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., the U.S. Mint made the momentous announcement that in 2009 it will issue four new designs of the penny.

“Oh great,” you’re probably thinking, “Now I’ll be able to collect something more valuable than my AIG stock.”

In fact, 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of our 16th president’s birthday — the president who has safeguarded our most beloved piece of copper currency since his 100th birthday in 1909. Among all U.S. currency in use, the penny has gone the longest-50 years-without some kind of artistic overhaul or special edition.

All four new designs will replace the Lincoln Memorial on the tail side of the coin. The first will depict the log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born, the second will depict him splitting rails as a young man and the third will depict Lincoln as an ambitious lawyer in Springfield, Ill. The fourth, and most intriguing, will depict the U.S. Capitol dome under construction during the Civil War, recalling Lincoln’s order to continue building it as a sign of the Union’s determination to hold itself together.

You cannot call yourself an educated American without understanding the significance of Lincoln’s leadership during a national crisis. This is especially true in light of the moral leadership vacuum that is today’s federal government.

You also cannot be an educated American without understanding all of the Founding Fathers’ achievements. Without George Washington, there would be no United States of America, let alone one that even minimally functions to this day. The historian David McCullough, speaking about his Revolutionary War chronicle, “1776,” said of Washington and the rest of those merry men, “We can never know too much about them,” an assessment that also functions as a clever justification to buy his book.

Surely McCullough is correct. The men who built the United States were, indeed, some of the bravest and most brilliant Americans who ever lived. To this day, they remain underappreciated by millions of their contemporary countrymen, in a nation that, as Dan Rather cautioned on Tuesday night in he Metcalf Ballroom, no longer understands the idea of civics.

Heck, I’m flabbergasted simply by their youth: At the time the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, Thomas Jefferson was 33. John Adams was 40. Washington, commanding the Continental Army, was 44. Alexander Hamilton, writing the Federalist Papers in 1787, was a scant 32. “Founding Fathers” isn’t even accurate. “Founding older brothers” is closer to the truth. It recalls funnyman Tom Lehrer’s great line, “It’s a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he’d been dead for two years.”

By the same token, we as Americans could never learn enough about Lincoln. I have only just begun Doris Kearns Goodwin’s recent biography, “Team of Rivals,” but its title alone hints at one of Lincoln’s greatest unheeded precedents: When he was elected president for the first time, he chose all the men who had run against him for the nomination-most of whom hated him-to serve in his cabinet as his closest and most trusted advisers. Why? Because he knew they were the smartest and most qualified men for the job, and in such a monumental crisis as the Civil War, personal animosities must be cast aside for the good of the country.

Oddly enough, the “Team of Rivals” argument gives us reason to hope for the election of either current candidate for president, which is appropriate since this is supposed to be the year of hope and change. Sen. Barack Obama has referred to Ms. Goodwin’s book on multiple occasions during the campaign, speaking warmly of the idea of bringing former rivals into his administration. Sen. John McCain, to his great credit, has specifically pledged to appoint “more than one” Democrat into his own cabinet, should he be elected. Generally, a president will pick only one such rival and almost always put that person in a minor post.

Whether either candidate will follow through on this promise is questionable. But at tomorrow night’s first debate between the two candidates, “bipartisanship” and “bringing people together” would be good buzz words for a drinking game. “Hope” and “putting country first” might work, too. Just don’t use “change” or you’ll end up in the hospital.

Because Lincoln is synonymous with the penny, the Mint still has reason to produce them, as well as sex them up for anniversaries.

His legacy is reason enough for this thoughtful re-design and re-introduction of the penny. He was an American leader so remarkable that his ideas permeate the landscape almost 150 years after his death. A leader who, with each passing year, seems more of an ideal than a past reality.

It may be overly sentimental to gush over what is, after all, just a thin, round piece of copper whose practical purpose has essentially been reduced to picking at scratch tickets and sitting in a jar for 15 years, gathering dust and seeing its value degrade almost by the hour. But I don’t mind. I’m a sentimental guy.

Dan Seliber, a junior in the College of Communication , is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at dseliber@bu.edu.