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Advertisement 1 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. And remembering one of Canada's greatest orators, the late Stephen Lewis Published Apr 19, 2026 Last updated 6 hours ago 4 minute read Article content LINCOLN CITY, INDIANA — How should presidents speak in times of war? THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS Enjoy the latest local, national and international news. SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE ARTICLES Enjoy the latest local, national and international news. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. or Article content Circumstances happily brought me to the undulating hills of remote southwestern Indiana, to the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. Article content Article content While born in Kentucky and spending his adult life in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln lived on a farm here from age seven to 21. He came to Indiana as a boy and left as a man. Article content
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Article content Thomas Lincoln moved his family here in 1816, and his wife, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died in 1818, when their son Abraham was only nine years old. Thomas would remarry, and the young Lincoln would grow up with his stepmother and her children, along with his own siblings, working hard on the farm. The precocious boy would school himself, reading whatever he could get his hands on, as he would later teach himself the law. Article content By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Article content The Indiana memorial is very modest, really just a small museum, adorned as all Lincoln memorials are with quotations from his greatest speeches — the first and second inaugurals, the Gettysburg address. Article content It is a fitting place to think about how presidents ought to speak in times of war. There has been something of a decline from the 16th president to the 47th, from Lincoln to Donald Trump. History moves on, but does not always progress. Article content Lincoln made arguments, sustained arguments, over many years of campaigning and while president about the necessity of war, the aims of war, and the conduct of war. His great wartime addresses were soaring; they were the exception. The workaday task of a democratic leader, as Lincoln understood well, was not only to inspire citizens or rally voters, but to inform and persuade. The people have a right to know for what just cause they are fighting, and why it is necessary. Article content
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Article content Trump flailed about this week, launching an ad hominem attack on Pope Leo XIV and then another ad hominem attack on Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for preferring the Holy Father's exhortations for peace to Trump's eruptions for war. Lincoln would be embarrassed for the Union that the office he ennobled and elevated is now degraded and diminished by Trump, but more than that, he would be perplexed. Article content Article content How does a president planning a war not prepare the people who are to fight it, and the population who will suffer its human losses and political and economic disruptions? How does a president at war not offer words of confidence and clarity about the purpose of the war, of competent command in strategy, of comfort and consolation for the suffering? Article content More than 10 years into the Trump oratorical dyspepsia, there is widespread resignation that Trump is just being Trump, and that a man who delights in the death of those he dislikes cannot be expected to do better. Article content The lesson of the Lincoln boyhood memorial is rather different. Even from the most humble beginnings — without even a school to attend — it is possible for great leaders to demand excellence of themselves, as the minimum required of those who would be so bold as to lead others. Advertisement 1 This advertisement has not loaded yet. Advertisement 2 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content Lincoln made the moral and political case for the Civil War because he understood it to be a moral and political obligation. Trump does not bother to make a case, as he simply cannot accept that there are any moral or political obligations to which he must conform. Article content "There is one thing," Trump told The New York Times about limits on his global power. "My own morality. My own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me." Article content *** Article content The pace of news caused neglect here about the recent death of Stephen Lewis, Ontario NDP leader in the 1970s and later Brian Mulroney's first ambassador to the United Nations. A column about the power and purpose of political speech is a worthy place to remember one of Canada's greatest orators. Article content It was more than 35 years ago that Lewis came to Queen's University to deliver a passionate — he was perpetually passionate at the podium! — address against the first Iraq War. Not even 20 then, I was mesmerized by the speech, even though I did not agree with his position. It was principled — though I disagreed both on principle and with his premises — and preternaturally persuasive, even though I was not persuaded. Such was the performance though that I wanted to be. I was not on his side, but listening to him make the contrary case was an experience of moral and political uplift. He had a rare gift and shared it widely, including with those who disagreed. Article content
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Article content Article content Lewis argued that night that the "world had simply gone mad," that billions could be committed to war while poor children were dying for lack of a simple packet of oral rehydration salts. I remember the moral urgency of it even today. Article content A Lewis argument did not come in simple packaging. He thought that words were fun and that it was a kindness to introduce his listeners to new ones. He was right. I delighted to re-discover, upon news of his death, an interview recalling his debate, while still an undergraduate, with Sen. John F. Kennedy at Hart House in Toronto in the 1950s. He described it as including "rambunctious lacerations" on both sides. An expression so magnificent it makes one welcome bleeding. Article content Lewis was not Abraham Lincoln, but he paid his audiences the high compliment of speaking up to them, as befits a democracy in which government is of the people, by the people and for the people. Article content National Post Article content
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