photo by: Creators Syndicate

Jamie Stiehm

The most tragic rhyme in American history falls in November’s time, one century apart. President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address on Nov. 19, 1863; President John F. Kennedy died in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

These events reach over endless bends in a profound dialogue like the mighty Mississippi River, cutting through North and South.

Just coincidence the picture-perfect Yankee president, Jack Kennedy of Massachusetts, was slain on the losing side of the Civil War? Texas was the largest Confederate slave state, known for its violent swagger. Sixty-some years ago, Dallas was a lawless land, a serious safety risk.

The men are connected in myriad ways beyond their shattering deaths. Both had great physical courage and were loved for their quick wit. They were men of the word: poetry, plays and commanding prose. Kennedy quoted Robert Frost, and Lincoln memorized “Macbeth.”

That their hearts and tongues could be stilled by a shot broke American hearts in the best and worst of times. We wept at the cruel losses.

As Quaker leader Lucretia Mott wrote when the victorious Civil War president was murdered (by a Confederate sympathizer): “We want the sun to be darkened and the moon not give her light.”

Yet there’s one overlooked gossamer thread. In the 1840s, Lincoln argued against admitting Texas into the Union. Statehood for Texas would add huge heft to Southern slavery. President James Polk of Tennessee made Texas a feather in his cap in 1845.

Over a century later, daring fate like a bronzed Greek hero, Kennedy traveled there to court the Southern Democratic bloc. He had to win Jim Crow Texas in 1964 but faced questions about his stance on civil rights. Kennedy hosted the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the White House the day of the 1963 March on Washington.

Note, Kennedy was traveling to another country: the past. As Southern novelist William Faulkner told us, the past is always present in those parts — “not even past.” Bitterness lingered long after the winners felt the Civil War was “over.”

So you could say Kennedy’s fate was a very late outcome of the Civil War.

Texas, it almost had to be you.

(As an aside, a salve to see former President Bill Clinton alive and well last week, discussing his new book, “Citizen,” and urging consensus in shattering times. My favorite president in living memory.)

So we hear an autumnal rhyme as we mark November dates the darkest hours of the 19th and 20th centuries. Not for nothing did Lincoln proclaim Thanksgiving a national holiday for the torn nation in 1863.

At the Civil War’s midpoint, Lincoln’s battlefield speech is credited with saving the Union by redefining the conflict. In two minutes, the war became about expanding freedom (from bondage) and democracy.

Lincoln, also a tragic hero, changed greatly after the divided nation took up arms in 1861. No longer a matter of the Union map, the war was infused with fresh new meaning.

Some say Kennedy came late to civil rights. Lincoln took time to move forward, never an abolitionist until he became the greatest abolitionist — emancipator — of all.

Standing on a ground of deep suffering, before the war was lost or won, Lincoln had to inspire the living and honor the thousands who fell in the theater of war.

The summer battle between the blue and gray armies made it the saddest site in the nation’s four score and seven years. On a day when the sun set early, brevity was the soul of eloquence for the 16th president.

With the grapes of wrath and grief hanging heavy, Lincoln did the work — to inspire, comfort and honor — magnificently.

Historian Douglas Brinkley says, “There will be a never-ending Niagara Falls stream of books about Lincoln and Kennedy.”

Looking back at the bright shining days before Kennedy’s murder, we conjure a time when things were looking up after the caged and conformist 1950s.

New ideas and styles were shaking; artists, authors, musicians and scientists were invited to the White House. Exhilaration filled the air during Kennedy’s Thousand Days.

The moment that slew something in all who remember 1963 — a state of grace — comes back to haunt us on a November noonday.

— Jamie Stiehm is a syndicated columnist with Creators.