Ives had strong political interests; he tried for years to develop some interest in his proposal for a national plebiscite measure requiring great issues to be put to the electorate, but also requiring mandatory political studies into the issues for some months before voting. It is clear that he ranked Abraham Lincoln with his great heroes among the Transcendentalist writers of New England who lived at the same time as the President. There is a particular musical vocabulary Ives uses when writing of such figures and ideas associated with them.

Hard-edged chords, sudden harmonic shifts that seem to fade into other-worldly planes, determined, tough rhythms, and wide-spread chord voicings are common elements of these works.

Lincoln, the Great Commoner is a poem by Edwin Markham that has provided one of the best-known soubriquets for Lincoln. Ives chose lines that praised the fallen president's steadfastness and consistency of vision. The composition was written in 1912 as a work for unison chorus and orchestra. British-born conductor David Wooldridge, in his book From the Steeples and the Mountains, a Study of Charles Ives, states the opinion that, along with General William Booth Enters Into Heaven it is Ives' greatest chorus and orchestra work. Wooldridge also sounds off angrily in the book about the difficulties in getting proper, usable score and parts to perform Ives' music, and specifically mentions this version of Lincoln as a victim of the publishers. By 1971, when the book was published, there was still no record of this work ever having been performed in its original form. It is probably the lack of response to the original version that caused Ives in 1921 to make a version of it for solo voice and piano and to include it in his self-financed collection of 114 Songs. Inadequate as this version is, at least it has been performed and recorded.

Ives adds to Markham's text some lines of his own pen as a preface:

The storm and stress of life!

The curse of war and strife!

The harsh vindictiveness of men!

The cuts of sword and pen!

What needed to be borne—he bore!

What needed to be fought—he fought!

But in his soul, he stood them up as—naught!

The song version is written in unmeasured notation (i.e., without bar lines). It is written to be played loudly almost throughout. The work quotes patriotic Union songs, including America, Battle Cry of Freedom, Columbia, Gem of the Ocean, and Hail Columbia!. Ives quoted the last seven measures of Lincoln, the Great Commoner in another song, "Nov. 2, 1920". Clearly he saw a parallel between Lincoln's assassination just as the Civil War ended and Woodrow Wilson's paralysis before he could consolidate World War I victory into a League of Nations with American participation.

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