Posted on 11/19/2009 7:51:44 AM PST by BGHater
The lesson of history for any small child is that if you are lucky enough to be presented to the future president of the US, then make sure you have evidence of the encounter before bragging about it to your classmates.
George Patten, aged eight, discovered the bitter truth of that maxim in 1860 after he boasted at school about having met Abraham Lincoln, having been introduced to the then presidential candidate with his journalist father.
The boy's friends thought he had made the story up, and bullied him. To settle the matter, Patten's teacher wrote to the White House asking for clarification about whether there was any truth to the anecdote.
On 19 March 1861, two weeks after his inauguration and despite being preoccupied with forming an administration and the early slide into civil war, Lincoln took the trouble to reply: "To whom it may concern: I did see and talk with George Evans Patten, last May, at Springfield, Illinois. Respectfully, A. Lincoln."
The letter has now been put up for sale by Philadelphia's Raab Collection at a price of $60,000 (£36,000).
Last year another letter written by Lincoln to a group of children sold for $3.4m – a record for a manuscript in the United States.
That was an 1864 reply to a petition made by 195 children who asked him to ensure the freedom of "all the slave children in this country".
In the letter, dated 5 April 1864, he wrote: "Please tell these little people I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and generous sympathy, and that while I have not the power to grant all they ask, I trust that they will remember that God has, and that, as it seems, He wills to do it."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Cool! A CW thread! Where are all the old timers besides Non Seq? They just can’t be the same without old standwattie.
I swear, a guy takes a Freep break, and all the players change.
Probably how Obama starts most of his letters. Goodness knows he considers most of out her the “Little People.”
What do you find objectionable about this quote? He chose option 2 because he decided it was necessary to preserve the Union, exactly as he said he would.
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Thanks BGHater. Our greatest President. |
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Historically, Booth let Lincoln off of the hook. He should have lived thru "reconstruction".
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Thus always to tyrants.
US Grant owned William Jones. Grant’s wife had four servants who weren’t freed until the Emancipation Proclamation.
Which he manumitted in 1859 when he moved to Illinois.
Grant’s wife had four servants who weren’t freed until the Emancipation Proclamation.
Shortly afterwards, actually. And since Mrs. Grant's family lived in Missouri, which was not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation, their freedom was not due to any law.
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