The history depicted in today’s reading reminds me just how much I dislike stereotypes of any kind. I am a self defined conservative woman and I do not approve most of what I’ve read here. I’m going to focus on the Lincoln article to save some time. I don’t think it would be a surprise to most who know me that I don’t really appreciate people taking Lincoln’s words out of context. Lincoln and his view on the Constitution and it’s writers is extremely complex. To say that “He respected and followed the text of the Constitution, rather than interpreting it as a “living” and evolving document or simply scrapping it altogether” would be a blatant lie. Lincoln understood the flexibility of the Constitution in times of war and at times completely ignored it. He committed many unconstitutional acts in his attempt to protect it. But I digress. Postell picked and chose what speeches to quote Lincoln from and ignored his actions. History without context is worthless. Instead, this history is purposefully narrow in order to support his point. Any and all history can corrupt itself if written this way. To corrupt history for one’s own purpose is upsetting to me. I think it defeats everything we have studied and worked towards as historians and public historians. If I were to create a museum exhibit of the Lincoln depicted in Postell’s work it would, by necessity, have to end at his election. The Lincoln of the Civil War would not support his supposition whatsoever. As historians and public historians we have to make sure that we’re telling the whole story no matter if we are red, blue, or purple.