To the Editor:

The word “politics” is from the Ancient Greek “polis” meaning city-state. These city-states developed when and where the Greeks chose to unify and establish a government that protected them and promoted their common good. These city-states are where history tells us democracy was born.

Now of course Classical Athens was anything but democratic by today’s standards, being that the majority of its population was disenfranchised. However, its models and ideals and those of subsequent more inclusive democracies, are incorporated into what we have developed in our own United States of America.

Throughout our nation’s history, politicians have come and gone who have reinterpreted and represented our past in ways to suit their own political purposes. In retrospect, some have been better for our country in terms of building strength and unity, while others have clearly been damaging — their impact necessitating years of national healing and repair.

American historians too have done their share of reinterpreting and representing American history. Some have done it with an earnest desire to illuminate long hidden aspects of our past so we might better understand it moving forward. While others are just earning a living. Some have a political agenda of their own or are doing the political bidding of others.

As we approach this Presidents’ Day I am reflecting on the most damaging and divisive revisionist message I’ve ever read or heard, and am reminded of a lecture given by a published historian in 2006. It sought to represent Abraham Lincoln as a racist, tyrant bent on destroying American liberties for the benefit of a wealthy industrial elite. This speaker took certain of Lincoln’s words and actions out of their context and intertwined them in a narrative to paint the picture of his presidency as the beginning of the end for American democracy.

While I already knew a lot about Lincoln at the time, having an open and inquisitive mind, this experience prompted me to delve rather deeply into a Lincoln study of my own. In examining primary sources and their context related to the man’s arguments, I could find no truth or sense to any of his interpretations or assertions. Yet surprisingly, I have since seen this historian’s mindset spread, and fuel one faction of the many faceted antigovernment coalition of today.

This is still a free country where you are free to explore our past and present.

All Americans quite frankly have a civic duty to do so. Too many of us are lulled into a belief that they can let others do the work for them, and then tell them what to think and do. At this juncture Americans need to clear their minds of angry and polarizing political rhetoric, and quietly do some research of their own. Not just an analysis of our history, but also of its current political trends, personalities, and movements. Only this enlightenment will bring a reemergence of what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” and help us on our national road to recovery.

Randi Allen Kiely

Newtown