AMERICA ABRAHAM LINCOLN I We are a mighty nation and as we run our memory back over the pages of history, we find a race of men whom we claim as our fathers. They were iron men and we understand that by what they did, it has followed that the degree of prosperity which we enjoy has come to us. They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason. Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in the future be our enemy. Reason must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly laboured for, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people everywhere. It was the sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not only to the people of this country, but hope to all the world for all future time. Let us readopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let all Americans, let all lovers of liberty everywhere, join in the great and good work. II Many free countries have lost their liberties, and ours may lose hers; but if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never deserted her. This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. I look to the great American people and to that God who has never forsaken them. The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail. If we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate and mistakes delay it; but sooner or later the victory is sure to come. Still let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy final triumph. Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God in his own good time will give us the rightful result. Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it. 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 do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. III Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? 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. |