Whose legacy will last: Lincoln’s or Darwin’s?
These two men had many similar upbringings but journeyed down to different paths. Both were born on February 12, 1809, they had religious family influences, they both lost their mothers at a young age, they encountered difficult relationships with their fathers, and they were challenged in direction of career path. Both were educated and detailed in their studies. Lincoln had an interest in law and politics while Darwin devoted himself to science and biology. The most notable connection between the men is that each of them revolutionized history in a major way.
President Lincoln’s major achievement was the abolition of slavery in many states during the Civil War. Lincoln was an avid believer that “all men are created equal” as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, he fought with those who tried to deny freedom to slaves. Lincoln understood that, regardless of skin color, all mankind was created by God and subjecting anyone to slavery was a violation of God’s commands. One of his greatest accomplishments was the Gettysburg Address. He said, “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” Additionally Lincoln’s second inaugural address mentions God fourteen times and quotes the Bible twice. He was greatly impacted by the word of God.
Darwin, on the other hand, wrote The Descent of Man which argued that caucasians are the highest-evolved race, his view of dark-skinned people was extremely different from that of Lincoln. During the Civil War Darwin published a famous book On the Origin of Species Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life in 1859. This sparked and fueled the evolutionary worldview that every living thing evolved from a single celled organism in opposition to biblical creation. Darwin attended Cambridge with the intentions of growing in his theological studies however remained an agnostic as he struggled with the reality of death and suffering.
Both men have changed the world and have statues and memorials to remember their contributions. The legacy of Darwin and Lincoln reveal how important our starting points are in determining our beliefs about the past and the future, ultimately impacting the present. From an eternal perspective, Abraham Lincoln once responded “I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.”
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