For proud Illinoisans, it’s easy to jump to Abraham Lincoln as the uber better angel. In this time of great division, 2026, we sorely need another one.

A Touch of Lincoln Heritage

Illinois grade schoolers of the 1960s went on field trips to Abe’s home in Springfield. School children will visit and honor his heritage home as long as there is a free America. But school kids of the 60s got to visit the house before it was converted to something on the order of a museum. Back then, you could take a seat at his kitchen table and walk throughout the house. Now as then, kids bond with the Prairie State homeland and begin to think of Honest Abe special, for what he did and what he represented.

Lincoln’s Rise During Division and Uncertainty

After years of bitter back-and-forth between free and slave holding states, there was no compromise in sight. The country seemed headed toward civil war over the issue of slavery. Lincoln won as the Republican candidate, with a minority of eligible votes, but an electoral majority. He received no Southern state support. Before he was sworn in, seven Southern states had seceded from the Union.

At Lincoln’s First Inauguration, the Uber Better Angel Emerges

On March 4, 1861, Lincoln took the oath and was sworn into office. President Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, and gave one of his powerful, memorable speeches. He tried to communicate that he was not radical, and that secession from the Union was the wrong way to go.

The Ending Words of His Inaugural Address:

“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

President Lincoln

The USA Certainly Needs Another Uber Better Angel

In contemporary English, “uber-” is a prefix meaning “extreme,” “super,” or “the ultimate example of.” Here, the uber descriptor is applied to the notion of a better angel.