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Abraham Lincoln On
Ethics
An article on Lincoln's
personal code of ethics and his view of business ethics, based on an excerpt from the one-man
play “Lincoln Live”
by Gene Griessman
“What does it mean to be ethical?
As far as I’m concerned, it means
treating others the way you’d want to be treated.
I never joined a church because the
churches of my day required you to subscribe to a particular doctrine or
creed. I told a minister who was trying to recruit me that if I ever
found a church that would inscribe over its altar only two requirements, I
would join that church with all my heart: The first requirement would be,
‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.’ The second
requirement would be, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’
I reckon that anyone who keeps those
two commandments will never have a problem with any legitimate code of
ethics. The second great commandment is really the basis of the Golden
Rule—loving your neighbor as yourself.
Being ethical means being honest.
Perhaps the greatest asset was being known as Honest Abe. It was a good
name, and I believe that a good name is more to be desired than great
riches.
I made it a practice to be so clear
that no honest man could misunderstand me and no dishonest one could
successfully misrepresent me
As you know, I’m a lawyer; and, yes,
there were lawyer jokes back in the 1800s. I remember a story about a
preacher back in Indiana who was conducting a funeral service for a
prominent lawyer. At one point in his eulogy, the minister said, “Here
lies a successful lawyer and an honest man.” A woman in the audience
whispered to her friend: “We need to take a peek to see if there are two
bodies in the casket?”
I happen to believe that a lawyer can
be honest. In fact I found that clients often had more trouble telling
the truth than lawyers did.
Here’s some advice I gave young
lawyers: “Resolve to be honest at all events. If, in your own judgment,
you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a
lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of
which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave.”
If you’re ethical, you’ll strive to be
knowledgeable. In the 1800s it was common for people to talk about
“living up to the light” that one had. It was an excellent way of
admitting in advance that one could be mistaken because of lack of
knowledge. I like that concept, and used it in my Second Inaugural
Address: “With firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right” is
the way I said it in my second inaugural address.
But there's something more important
than knowing the truth, and that’s knowing what to do with the truth. A
village idiot might stumble upon the truth, tell everybody in sight, and
do irreparable damage. Being wise involves knowing when to tell the truth,
knowing how to tell the truth, knowing who to tell it to, and even
deciding if you should tell it at all. Some truth should never be
told--like when my wife Mary asked me what I thought of one of her
ridiculous-looking new hats.
Being ethical doesn’t mean that you be
suicidal. .
If you’re ethical, you’ll strive to
use good judgment. The true rule in determining to accept or reject any
thing is not whether it has any evil in it; but whether it has more of
evil than of good. There are few things wholly evil or wholly good.
Almost every thing…is an inseparable compound of the two so that our best
judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded."
Note to Meeting Planners: If you are planning a program that
includes a session on ethics, consider inviting Honest Abe to be your
speaker. For information
about this presentation, click here.
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"Gene |
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