[LINK] "Darwin, Lincoln, we salute your birth"

[rfmcdonald]

I like Don Lindman's article from the Chicago Daily Herald.

Two hundred years ago two boys were born, one to a prominent English family and the other to a dirt-poor Kentucky farmer who could barely write his name.

As Adam Gopnik writes in the February 2009 issue of Smithsonian, a lot of pebbles splash into the tide of history. Almost all make a small mark that soon disappears in the flow of the tide, but occasionally one comes along that changes the direction of the ocean itself.

Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were ocean-changing pebbles, both born Feb. 12, 1809.

Darwin's ideas of the evolution of species triggered changes in science that have been of tsunami size. Lincoln's stance on racial equality and on the strength of the democratic system of government have not only brought about irreversible changes in American society but triggered similar changes in many other nations around the world.

These two men were not the only ones who contributed to events. They weren't even the first. But they stand as leaders and symbols of their causes.

Darwin was studying for the Anglican priesthood when he went on a five-year voyage as a naturalist on board the HMS Beagle. He returned to England with the data from which he formulated his theory of the development of species through evolution.

For 20 more years he gathered data and reworked his theories before finally making them public. In doing so he eventually became the poster boy for progress among scientists and the poster boy for evil in the eyes of the church.

However, after nearly 200 years of additional evidence and study Darwin's ideas are more deeply than ever ingrained in the workings of science, while religious opposition has weakened considerably.

Every generation seems to revisit Lincoln and his ideas, and posit some new and revisionist rewriting of his history. One common idea is that Lincoln really was a racist, and that his Emancipation Proclamation and his anti-slavery speeches were tools in his real political concern - keeping the nation together.

There doesn't seem to be much doubt that Lincoln grew in his opposition to slavery, but there's no need to force an either/or decision on his motives for going to war. He appears to both be a believer in the cause of freeing the slaves and also in the cause of keeping the nation together.

Had he not kept the nation together, democracy as a viable political system would have failed.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a friend of the new nation, wrote in the early 19th century: "I will refuse to believe in the duration of a government which is called upon to hold together forty different nations covering an area half that of Europe."

That government did hold together, and over 230 years later it stands as the beacon of freedom and self-government for the rest of the world. It also stands as a representative of the struggle for civil rights. That is one reason why Barack Obama's election was so significant on the worldwide scene.

Both men had their flaws. We may disagree with some or many of the ideas they held. But Darwin and Lincoln were two of those rare pebbles that made the ocean turn around and flow in a different direction. We celebrate their birth.