The Sixteenth President

I don't know how I forgot to post the mono version of my shot yesterday but I've now fixed it.  A really dumb gaffe.  Sorry.


I am writing an essay on the history of xenophobia for the local newspaper.  I went to the library looking for books/materials on  Reconstruction after the Civil War.  The things I need are being sent from the main branch.
In the meantime, while I explore online sources and research the topic as it pertains to ancient Rome and Sparta, I have been reading selected speeches by Abraham Lincoln. His eloquence is stunning.

The following passage from his annual speech to Congress on December 1, 1862 really struck me and I thought I would share it:


“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.  We of this Congress  and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.  No personal significance or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.  The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say  we are for the union. The world will not forget that we say this.  We know how to save the union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We - even we here - hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving  freedom to the slave, we assure  freedom to the free  – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.  We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth…The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just – a way which, if followed, the world will ever applaud, and God must forever bless.”

December 1, 1862     ABRAHAM LINCOLN