Happy B'day to My Valentine, Abe Lincoln, Who Showed Us All How to Weather a Storm

Lincoln knew how to handle trouble, the truth and snowstorms. They say his young character was forged by long, lonely walks through the snow to return a book, to settle a debt, or to keep a promise.

As the nation observes Presidents Day today, we in Washington have a fresh appreciation for that skill set. We're beleaguered by the fates lately, with the sound and fury of partisan warfare ending in stalemate in the Capitol -- not unlike the opening Civil War battles at Bull Run. Some of us fear three more years of our uncivil war, unraveling the republic's fabric further. The mettle of the man from Illinois is still being sized up by his friends, foes and generals -- now as it was in 1861.

When last week's epic twin snowstorms silenced the Capital, there was only one thing for this Washington woman to do: host a valentine party for dearly beloved Abe. It seemed to strike the Zeitgeist right.

Over several days at home watching snow fall, I rounded up 24 friends to fete the 16th president -- yes, even if it meant walking miles from Dupont Circle to the National Cathedral. The midwinter fest was Friday, Feb. 12, Lincoln's 201st birthday. This was the bookend of a very long week as a shut-down city of talkers suddenly had no one to listen to
them.As hostess of this impromptu salon, here was a way to say publicly and
personally: be mine, historical valentine. On the invitations I drew hearts
with pennies in the center, that's how inspired I was. This piece of whimsy
was also a declaration that while the bicentennial of his birth may be over, the candles will always burn for Abe at my house.

On the guest list, which kept growing by the hour as the party drew near,
was a weary but wired glad-to-get-out-of-the-house mix. Friends from as
far away as Baltimore and Virginia horse country showed up, hungry for human
contact, chatter and cupcakes. To my delight, Bonnie Goldstein and James Grady of Politics
Daily came. Sally Denton, who just published a biography of Helen Gahagan Douglas, was there with her teenage son, Carson.

Once plenty of sparkling raspberry punch was poured, I convened everyone and
asked John Kropf, a government lawyer friend from Ohio, to do a reading of the
Farewell Address at Springfield, the parting words Lincoln spoke to his
townspeople. Morning rain fell as he prepared to board the train to
Washington in February 1861 to take the oath of office. He knew full well the
war was coming. And he kept it simple:

"To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter
of a century; here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried.
I know not how soon I shall see you again. . . Again I bid you all an
affectionate farewell."

Lincoln spoke in the moment, with no text. John's Midwestern cadences
resonated with the words. Even my friends from Virginia appeared pensive, as
if hearing him anew.

The full measure of my devotion may have started as a schoolgirl crush. If
you're a girl growing up in Wisconsin, he's practically the president next
door. He was in fact the first president to hail from outside the original
13 states. Springfield, where the family's large corner house stands,
was just a family field trip away. The richly humanizing Carl Sandburg
biographical volumes sat on your grandparents' shelves, waiting patiently to
be devoured. In those pages, rhyme and reason emerges as plain
as the nose on Lincoln's face: it took a man of uncommon sense from our part
of the country to settle the "sectional divide" between North and South.

These days, we Lincoln lovers have a restored Ford's Theatre (and museum)
and a profusion of new scholarship, thanks to the bicentennial. Almost all
the clubby "Lincolnista" presidential historians are men, however -- with the exception of
Doris Kearns Goodwin. The unwritten tenor of so many of these tomes is that he was a
man's man, awkward and rough-hewn when it came to women.

Well, not so. Valentine's Day is the perfect time for women to join the club, because Lincoln's heart, mind and humanity encompassed us as well. (For the record, his deathbed doctors were awed at his amazingly youthful, strong body.)

Lincoln loved his wife Mary well and probably would not have become
president without her polish, education, elegant entertaining and sage political
counsel. She came from the prominent Todd family of Lexington, Ky.
Stephen Douglas, Lincoln's political nemesis, also courted Mary in their
younger days, so perhaps if she had chosen Douglas, history would have been
very different.

So you see, throwing a party in Lincoln's honor 201 years after he was born in that log
cabin of lore was really the least I could do.

To be clear, I love Lincoln for keeping the nation intact. But I also adore
the way he spoke in the rain right from the heart as the town's tears fell. Then the train took him toward the biggest political blizzard of all time.