Existing comment:
The Heart of France:
On December 4, 1866, a gold medal -- paid for with the contributions of 40,000 French admirers -- was handed to the American minister in Paris to be given to Mary Lincoln. "Tell Mrs. Lincoln that in this little box is the heart of France."
Spearheaded by writer Victor Hugo and supporting the Committee of the French Democracy, the medal was created despite opposition from the dictatorship of Napoleon III. "If France had the freedom enjoyed by republican America," the committee said, "not thousands, but millions among us would have been counted as admirers."
Even overseas, Lincoln's image was used to sell a variety of goods This wrapper for French gloves features his likeness, with the words, "dedicated to the immortal Abraham Lincoln."
Lincoln In Africa:
On his 1958 visit to the United States, Prime Minister of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah, visited the Lincoln Memorial and placed a wreath at the base of the statue. The next year, Ghana commemorated Nkrumah's visit with a postage stamp marking the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. In 1965, Ghana issued four commemorative stamps with Lincoln's image to recognize the centennial of his assassination.
During a 1959 interview for the Voice of America broadcast, "In Search of Lincoln," Nhrumah claimed that Lincoln's significance for Africans was his role in "the eventual emancipation of peoples of African descent in the United States," and in ending the evil of slavery. Alluding to racial issues in the US, he stressed [???] the continual need for vigilance in the name of justice and equal treatment, and he lamented that Lincoln's egalitarianism "tends to be forgotten even in these neglected times."
A Fitting Memorial:
An influential Romantic poet and a leader of the Spanish Abolitionist Society, Carolina Coronado influenced Lincoln's early reputation in Spain with her "Ode to Lincoln," published after his election in 1860. In it, she praised Lincoln as "the faithful son of the glorious, just, kind-hearted Washington."
Upon Lincoln's assassination, Coronado penned another poem in honor of the fallen president and, like many, elevated the man to martyr.
.... excerpt from "The Redeeming Eagle":
Blood overflowing from its throat and
shaking the fouled mud onto Richmond,
the victorious eagle lifts
America up and its flight astounds the world.
But my tongue doesn't sing its victory
for its wrathful valor in battle;
I sing to God for sending it to the earth
to triumph in the Christian war.
...
In you the new dynasty was born
that will reign over the world throughout the ages
that majesty of majesties
that heaven entrusts only to virtue.
The scepter without human tyranny,
the crown without crazy vanities,
sprayed with your purest blood
the New World was left consecrated.
Humble woodcutter, the monarchs go
to place flowers upon your grave,
and rich ships and poor boats alike
lower their banners of a hundred colors.
For you, in all the regions of the world
sublime orators raise their voices
and the Christian church with its many rites
lifts your glory to infinity.
-- Carolina Coronado, 1865 |