Vicissitudes and Victories

The Greatness of Abraham Lincoln

The greatness of Abraham Lincoln was often in his ability to articulate the highest aspirations of a nation. Check out the final phrase of his Second Inaugural address given as the Civil War was ending and before his unfortunate assassination. These were his thoughts about the possibility of reunion. Even as a skeptical historian, I find a genuineness in these words severely lacking in politicians who never even write their own speeches.

"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, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

(Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865)

posted by Joel @ 12:37 AM