Carl Sandburg began his Lincoln biography, noting, “Lincoln came nearer the average man and the common people than any man of the century. He had that warm compelling thing found in all real leaders of men, a kind of commonness through which each man whom he met saw that Lincoln was a man like himself, only bigger and deeper." After receiving the Pulitzer Prize in History for his six-volume biography of Lincoln, Sandburg was honored by an invitation to address a Joint Session of Congress on the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, on February 12, 1959. The last private citizen who had been asked to do so had been in 1874. The Speaker of the House introduced Sandburg to the President, Vice-President, justices, senators, and congressmen, and other dignitaries. It was said that Carl Sandburg was the man who probably knew more about "the life, the times, the hopes and the aspirations of Abraham Lincoln than any other human being". "Not often in the story of mankind does a man arrive on earth who is both steel and velvet, who is hard as a rock and soft as a drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect." Sandburg continued, "For millions, Lincoln was a personal treasure. Lincoln carried Democracy in his blood and bones, in the breath of his speeches and writings, in the lights and shadows of his personality. His most enduring memorial lay in the hearts of those who love liberty unselfishly for all men." Carl Sandburg, the historian and biographer was always first a poet and philosopher. A noted Lincoln scholar of the time, Lloyd Lewis, said of Sandburg's biography, "His product is, like his poems, a singularly eloquent use of contemporary anecdote and language. What people said about Lincoln, what they saw him do, what they heard him say and do. It is all here, as detailed as Dostoevski, and as American as Mark Twain." |