Journalist Sidney Blumenthal’s name is most often associated with one president of the recent past. Blumenthal is a longtime friend, associate and advisor to President Bill Clinton. He was also an advisor to Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign eight years ago.
But if you ask Sidney Blumenthal, the chief executive he is most obsessed with is not the 42nd president, but rather the 16th. "I've always been interested in (Abraham) Lincoln, having grown up in Illinois. Lincoln's always around, he's ubiquitous, but more than that he has represented the kind of political values that I aspired to," he explains.
Blumenthal taking his lifelong interest in Lincoln and is turning it into a four part series on the Great Emancipator. The first volume, A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1849, covers how Lincoln became the politician we know him as today.
"Lincoln...is a way into understanding the history of our country, the roots of our problems and how a political leader who rises from virtually nothing learns the skills of politics, becomes the man we now recognize as Abraham Lincoln," says Blumenthal. "It's not simply that it's a great story, it's a question of how does this happen and what are the great issues that he's involved with that still illuminate our predicaments today."
Lincoln famously stated "I used to be a slave" in 1856 when he assumed his new political identity in the newly formed Illinois Republican Party that he helped create. It was his lifelong struggle to separate himself from his past that shaped the politician Lincoln became, according to Blumenthal.
"(That statement) meant something deeply personal to him and it goes to the heart of his personal politics and what he would become and how he would grapple with the issue of slavery," he explains.
As a boy, Lincoln was essentially an indentured servant, rented out by his father as a wage laborer until he was twenty one years old and could finally leave his oppressive environment. Despite his father's disapproval and efforts to shape him into a laborer, Lincoln was constantly reading and learning from the men he met through working on their properties. Home libraries were consumed, speeches were raptly paid attention to, and Lincoln remained keenly observant of human nature and the art of argument.
Blumenthal notes, "[Lincoln] was always developing, always internally working on himself" despite the odds against him. Through his efforts of self-education and his unwavering work ethic as a laborer, apprentice, lawyer and politician, "Lincoln had by his own means emancipated himself."
This first installment on Lincoln begins with his identity as a slave and concludes with his rise to political power. Throughout the process of writing and researching Lincoln's life, Blumenthal says that it is important to examine even the smallest details.
His "obsession" with Abraham Lincoln will continue with three more volumes. "If you know the history, it's not gone," says Blumenthal.
