A Few Appropriate Remarks

Lincoln a Bugs Bunny fan?

Who knew? Lincoln would have been a Bugs Bunny fan! As you likely know, Bugs starred in the famous "Rabbit of Seville." A hundred years before Bugs worked that shaving lather into Elmer Fudd's bald head, Lincoln listened to that classic music from the Italian comic opera.

The Lincoln Memorial Association newsletter this month says that on March 24, 1864, Lincoln was in the front row at Willard's Hall in Washington, D.C. to hear an auria from the "Barber of Seville," performed by Theodore Hablemann. He may have gone at the suggestion of Mary and Robert, who had enjoyed "The Barber of Seville" two years earlier.

Seriously, who wouldn't enjoy that which Bugs made classic?

Kick back, take your top hat off, and enjoy "The Rabbit of Seville," compliments of Yahoo! Video:

Rabbit of Seville, featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd (1950) @ Yahoo! Video

VP Very Much a Part of the Legislative Branch in Lincoln's Day

"Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?" Gwen Ifill asked vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Palin basically said she agreed, but offered nothing substantive in her reply and lost an opportunity.

Ifill then posed the same question to Joe Biden, and Biden pounced: "The idea he's part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us." Biden said that Cheney "doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch."

Uh, Senator Biden, Article I defines the Legislative Branch and says, "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate." This was understood by Lincoln and those Presidents who came before him.

In Lincoln's day, the veep was very much a part of the Legislative Branch. Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer notes:

"But once [Vice President Hannibal] Hamlin took the oath inside the Capitol he became, in a very real sense, part of the legislative, not the executive, branch--the presiding officer of the Senate and not a day-to-day participant in the presidential decisions. In those days, vice presidents did not have an office in the White House or a seat at the Cabinet table."

(Lincoln Lore, Number 1894, Fall 2008, p. 38)

Cool Lincoln Paintings and Prints

I just got what might be the last issue of Lincoln Lore ever published by the Lincoln Museum. It's a hefty issue, with over 50 pages. The back cover caught my eye:

It featured some great images by artist Wendy Allen from Lincoln Into Art: both paintings and prints, for sale or for virtual fingering like you used to do with the Sears Christmas Wishbook. ;-)