Abraham Lincoln, during the last years of his life, was hated, not just by Southerners, but by Northerners as well.

Now, of course, with the distance of time, Lincoln’s handling of our country’s greatest crisis is seen for what it is, a feat deserving all the admiration and praise that has been showered on his memory. But in the 1860s, political insiders considered him not much smarter than a dog. Certainly not intelligent enough to lead the country. Jokes and comments about Lincoln’s inferior education were everywhere.

George Bancroft, a noted historian, wrote, “We have a president without brains.”

A newspaper editorial wondered, “Who will write this ignorant man’s state papers?”

The Intelligencer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania commented in September of 1864, “We have never seen a letter, a document, or a speech of Mr. Lincoln’s that was not discreditable to a person occupying his exalted official position. It is doubtful whether a single sentence of good English could be squeezed out of him, if he were put under a cider press or run through the ‘Universal Clothes Wringer.'”

Even his own cabinet had little respect for their leader at first, considering him a naive bumpkin.

Lincoln was called a baboon, a third-rate country lawyer, a dictator, a long-armed ape, a buffoon, and a liar. A common saying of the time was that “he once split rails and now splits the Union.”

Though Lincoln often wrote replies, sometimes even heated ones, in response to personal attacks against him, he rarely mailed them. The act of setting the facts straight in writing calmed him down enough that he was able to put the replies in a drawer and get on with the business of state without contributing to an already venomous atmosphere. He seemed to have a simple standard. If standing up for himself aided in his effort to save the republic, he would readily do so. However, if a response merely satisfied his personal honor and feelings but didn’t help to preserve the Union, Lincoln wouldn’t bother sending his reply.

He said this, “In any future great national trial, compared with the men in this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good.”

Today the nation is divided politically. I have friends with views that are opposite from mine. It would be easy for us to spit venom at each other over social media, but we choose not to.

I could fill this column with spite and belittlement. But I choose not to.

Needlessly making things worse is not a way to make them better. It is easy to add to the divisiveness, but we should choose not to.

That doesn’t mean I think everyone should roll over and play dead. But I think there are times and places to be strong, not weak, to be wise, not silly; to be good, not bad. And to be Lincoln-like in defense of ourselves and our beliefs.