Allan Pinkerton, President Abraham Lincoln, and Major General John A. McClernand standing outside a tent on October 3, 1862.
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One answer to that question is a paradox about history. In order to appreciate Lincoln's significance for our time, we have to humble ourselves to an understanding of his time and how he lived. Previous works on Lincoln's psychology have tried to force his melancholy into the mold of psychoanalytic theory: finding explanations in his early childhood and searching his adult writings for clues about his lust for his mother and rage toward his father. But Lincoln had his own ideas about why he suffered. He was seeped in his own rich culture, in which psychology was wrapped up with philosophy and spirituality. By studying that context, alongside Lincoln's words and the commentaries of his friends, neighbors and colleagues, we can begin to see his story. When Lincoln wrote, "I am now the most miserable man living"; when he averred that melancholy is a "misfortune, not a fault"; and when he said that without his jokes, he would die, for they "are the vents of my moods & gloom," he was leaving a record, not only of how he lived and grew but also of how he saw the world.
Looking at how Lincoln really lived isn't always easy, but it has the chance of reinvigorating our relationship to a man that is otherwise deeply threatened by so much iconography. More than 30 years ago, a typical illustration of Lincoln in popular culture was his appearance on Star Trek, in which he joined the crew members of the U.S.S. Enterprise in their war of good against evil. Today, a typical portrait is the wickedly brilliant cartoon Hard Drinkin' Lincoln, on the website icebox.com which makes the 16th President a cross between Homer Simpson and Kenny on South Park.
There's a good reason, though, to take Lincoln seriously: he offers many lessons for our own future. As we stand divided on religion, we can learn from a deeply spiritual man who was also deeply skeptical of religious dogma, who felt guided by a divine will but insisted that every public act be justified in secular language and reason. As we stand divided over a war, we can learn from a man who insisted that conflict in arms raised questions about who we are as a people--and who understood that "right makes might."
There is something useful, too, in Lincoln's humor. At a time when we both take ourselves desperately seriously and scoff off all attempts at meaning, we can learn something from a man who saw life as serious and deeply absurd, and who drew on both to fuel his deep sense of purpose. "I've been a fan of Lincoln's from an early age," Conan O'Brien told TIME, "and really fascinated by him. The main thing for me is that he was really funny. He chose the right words and kept things short, and those are two secrets to being timelessly funny. My favorite example was after the battle of Chickamauga. One of the Union generals had behaved badly and had become unnerved. Lincoln said the general was 'confused and stunned like a duck hit on the head.' You don't have to think about that in the context of 1863. It's just a funny image--full of anger and bitterness but getting deeply to the truth too."