Posted on 03/12/2016 8:20:47 PM PST by Steelfish
The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions (Address by Abraham Lincoln before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, January 27, 1838) Skip other details (including permanent urls, DOI, citation information) Volume 6, Issue 1, 1984, pp. 6-14
As a subject for the remarks of the evening, the perpetuation of our political institutions, is selected.
In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American People, find our account running, under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.
We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them — they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors.
Their's was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time, and untorn by [usurpation — to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. [READ ON]
(Excerpt) Read more at quod.lib.umich.edu ...
Just don’t quote Lincoln on his view of black folk. Yikes. For that matter, also none of the founding fathers. Whoops.
Abe Lincoln once shot a client for snoring in court.
Before he was famous Abe was assaulted and severely beaten by rogue negroes.
His travelling companion was almost beaten to death, if I understand correctly, in what can reasonably termed attempted murder.
I wonder what our world woul be like if only those dusky perpetrators had a few more cups of coffee that morning.
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