Posted on 02/12/2003 5:36:29 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
Well, let's start off with Ronald Reagan and Alan Keyes:
Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln...
-- Ronald Reagan , first inaugural address, January 20, 1981
A hundred and twenty years ago the greatest of all our Presidents delivered his second State of the Union Message in this chamber. "We cannot escape history," Abraham Lincoln warned. "We of this Congress and this Administration will be re membered in spite of ourselves." The "trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation." Well, that President and that Congress did not fail the American people. Together, they weathered the storm and preserved the union. Let it be said of us that we, too did not fail; that we, too, worked together to bring America through difficult times. Let us so conduct ourselves that two centuries from now, another Congress and another President, meeting in this chamber as we're meeting, will speak of us with pride, saying that we met the test and preserved for them in their day the sacred flame of liberty this last, best hope of man on Earth.
-- Ronald Reagan , State of the Union Address -January 26, 1982
We knew then what the liberal Democrat leaders just couldn't figure out....I heard those speakers at that other convention saying "we won the Cold War" -- and I couldn't help wondering, just who exactly do they mean by "we"? And to top it off, they even tried to portray themselves as sharing the same fundamental values of our party! What they truly don't understand is the principle so eloquently stated by Abraham Lincoln: "You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves." If we ever hear the Democrats quoting that passage by Lincoln and acting like they mean it, then, my friends, we will know that the opposition has really changed. Until then, we see all that rhetorical smoke, billowing out from the Democrats, well ladies and gentlemen, I'd follow the example of their nominee. Don't inhale.
---Ronald Reagan, 1992 Republican Convention Speech
It was this spirit that helped black folks in America to survive and even begin to move toward prosperity during the years of legalized oppression after the Civil War and well into the 20th century . It was also this spirit, when it came to light in the Civil Rights movement of the late 50's and 60's, that had the power to transform the hardened conscience of America. Surprised and edified by the quiet dignity of black Americans seeking justice, the people of this country were called back to some respect for the first principles of America's life. For the Civil Rights movement followed the example of the American Founders, and of Lincoln, who had proclaimed that every single human being had a worth that comes not from laws and constitutions, but from the hand of God. With quiet determination the freedom marchers insisted that every government, every law and every power whatsoever is obliged to respect that worth....the temptation to succumb to worldly judgment about the dignity of individuals, particularly those not favored by fortune with wealth, position and beauty, can be overwhelming. Black Americans have faced this temptation, and defeated it. Lincoln led the public battle against the doctrine of human inequality, but countless anonymous others have steadfastly done their work over the decades to keep the flame alive and to spread it
--Alan Keyes, Februrary 17, 2001
"Restoring the mantle of Lincoln to the Republican Party is a noble goal and, indeed, an essential one. But it is not enough to adopt the slogan. To lead the party in the footsteps of Lincoln requires that we understand clearly and deeply the soul of Lincoln's own deepest ambition
-- the wellsprings of the sometimes heartbreaking and, ultimately, healing acts of political and presidential leadership that constitute the legacy of Lincoln. What was the real purpose that animated the striving of that great man, for which he spent the last resources of his noble soul and ultimately paid with his life? The answer occurring readily to most Americans would probably be that Lincoln's career, and his presidency, were devoted to the task of freeing the slaves. How then are we to understand the following words, written by Lincoln during the war, to one of the foremost abolitionists of the day? "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it."This quotation can seem almost scandalous in its apparent disregard for the abolitionist cause, particularly for those who are perceptive enough to realize that not all "unions" justify such devotion -- the Soviets, after all, had a "union" and freely accepted the necessity of slavery in their attempt to perpetuate it. Soviet acceptance of slavery in the cause of its union was, of course, deeply wrong. Was Lincoln wrong as well? If we wish to understand, to wear again, the mantle of Lincoln, we must follow his thought deeper, and ask what it was about the Union that could move such a man -- whose deepest moral sentiments were outraged by the institution of slavery -- to defer the cause of abolition if it meant allowing the end of the political union of the American Republic.At stake was the survival of a community of free men still devoted, however imperfectly, to the attempt at just self-government. Lincoln understood the Founders to have formed a Union dedicated to vindicating the possibility of such a community. He believed that the Founders had understood that the institution of slavery, although it ultimately contradicted the principles of the republic, did not vitiate the solemn founding commitment to the pursuit of just self-government.
Accordingly, Lincoln argued, the Founders had placed the institution of slavery "in the course of ultimate extinction" partly through a series of practical political concessions such as the constitutional time limit on the slave trade. Far more important, however, was the fact -- as Lincoln argued in scholarly depth -- that the founding generation universally understood that they were committing the country to a perpetual struggle to conform their lives and political institutions to the principles stated in the Declaration that gave birth to the Union itself. They, and Lincoln, knew that slavery could not survive such a commitment.A Union that had formally broken its commitment to the Declaration, Lincoln believed, would no more be the Union of the founding. It would in fact be no less broken than the divided polity which the secession of the Southern states threatened to cause. Preserving the Union meant preserving the national commitment to the pursuit of justice in self-government, a goal never perfectly attained, but most definitely not to be abandoned because of any dispute about the manner of its accomplishment. This, I believe, is what Lincoln meant in the famous words at Gettysburg, when he identified the "great task remaining before us." That task, he said, was "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.".....or save the Union on the basis of the Declaration, Lincoln knew, required that slavery be returned to its condition at the Founding -- namely, that it be put firmly on the course of ultimate extinction. The delay in its extinction might be painfully long. But if it was necessary to endure that delay rather than admit that we could not govern ourselves under the principles of the Declaration, Lincoln was prepared to do so.....The resolve to evoke from his fellow citizens their assent to the eventual triumph of justice was Lincoln's greatest ambition, and his failure to do it without war was his greatest sorrow. In our time, the mantle -- the burden -- of the Declaration remains the source of what must be our own greatest ambition. The Republican Party must indeed reclaim the mantle of Lincoln -- we must highly resolve, as Lincoln said, to lead the nation to a renewed determination to seek justice according to the principles of the Declaration
. --Alan Keyes, August 12, 2000
"...in the wake of the assasination, editors, generals and public officials across the South voiced the opinion that the region had lost its best friend. Indignation meetings, so-called, were convened in many places. Lincoln stood for peace, mercy, and forgiveness. His loss, therefore, was a calamity for the defeated states. This opinion was sometimes ascribed to Jefferson Davis, even though he stood accused of complicity in the assasination....He [Davis] read the telegram [bringing news of Lincoln's death] and when it brought an exultant shout raised his hand to check the demonstration..."He had power over the Northern people," Davis wrote in his memoir of the war," and was without malignity to the southern people.
"...Alone of the southern apologists, [Alexander] Stephens held Lincoln in high regard. "The Union with him in sentiment," said the Georgian, "rose to the sublimnity of religious mysticism...in 1873 "Little Elick" Stephens, who again represented his Georgia district in Congress, praised Lincoln for his wisdom, kindness and generosity in a well-publicized speech seconding the acceptance of the gift of Francis B. Carpenter's famous painting of Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation."
...[in 1880] a young law student at the University of Virginia, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, speaking for the southern generation that grew to maturity after the war, declared, "I yield to no one precedence in love of the South. But because I love the South, I rejoice in the failure of the Confederacy"...the leading propenent of that creed was Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution. In 1886 Grady, thirty-six years old, was invited to address the New England Society of New York, on the 266th anniversary to the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. General Sherman, seated on the platform, was an honored guest, and the band played [I am not making this up] "Marching Through Georgia" before Grady was introduced.
Pronouncing the death of the Old South, he lauded the New South of Union and freedom and progress. And he offered Lincoln as the vibrant symbol not alone of reconciliation but of American character. "Lincoln," he said, "comprehended within himself all the strength, and gentleness, all the majesty and grace of the republic." He was indeed, the first American, "the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, in whose ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in whose great soul the faults of both were lost."
--From "Lincoln in American Memory" by Merrill D. Peterson P. 46-48
Walt
Happy Birthday Abe!!!
Richard F.
Thank God that we had a man like Lincoln at a time when we most needed it.
Well, there's no accounting for taste. :)
Walt
Who says the past never serves as an inspiration to the present any more?
You mean the one that ended in 1865?
Are you responding to the right thread? Maybe I would understand if you would explain what you are referring to as I challenge anyone to find when I've ever said anything about Clinton being good at anything except getting support from the media.
You might want to reconsider:
"In one of his most famous debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln spoke about how a society that tolerates slavery corrodes the very foundations of its own liberty. These words, I think, reveal Lincoln's awareness that he wasn't battling for territory on a map. He was battling to preserve a nation "conceived in Liberty."
Lincoln asked:
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around our doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises."
So today, let us heed the wisdom of a man who led our nation to a "new birth of freedom." Let us always be, first and foremost, lovers of liberty."
-- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 11/19/96
Walt
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