Remembering Abraham Lincoln

My grandson, who will be 13 on December 11th, has always admired Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. It is a shame that youngsters are not challenged to learn more about the Presidents of the US and have good head knowledge of each. It excites me to hear him talk about Lincoln, and I do encourage him to keep reading other information about the President.

Thanks to Don Surber for blogging on Lincoln today in his post 143 years ago today. Exactly 143 years ago today, Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address. I remember having to learn the Gettysburg Address when I was in high school. I wonder how many of our high schoolers could quote any of these words today.

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Lincoln won the Republican nomination for President first in 1860. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation which declared the freedom of the slaves within the Confederacy.

Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

This brings to mind what is going on in the world today - the war in Iraq. So many are calling for the soldiers to jump ship before the country is stable. i wonder what Lincoln would have to say, were he here today, and President. Would his words still ring true today? I certainly think they would.

The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.... "

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.... "

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