by jpitney | Nov 19, 2022 | Declaration of Independence, Lincoln, Reagan
Today is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. In 1987, President Reagan said: This is Lincoln’s greatest lesson, this lesson in liberty. He understood that the idea of human liberty is bound up in the very nature of our nation. He understood that...
by jpitney | Jan 22, 2021 | civic virtue, Lincoln, Presidency
Mitt Romney at Deseret News: My reading of history suggests what can heal social sickness. First, a great leader who “calls upon our better angels” can bring us together. Churchill rallied his nation to resist and defeat Nazism. Roosevelt elicited the endurance that...
by jpitney | Jan 15, 2021 | Biden, Civility, Lincoln, Rhetroric
Michael Gerson at The Washington Post: How can Biden shape a rhetoric of unity and inclusion in a nation that cannot agree on democratic values, and does not agree on truth itself? He might begin by reading Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural. Lincoln drew a hard line...
by jpitney | Dec 16, 2020 | Lincoln, Slavery
Frederick Douglass, ORATION IN MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, delivered at the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C., April 14, 1876 Inaugural Ceremonies of the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument to...
by jpitney | Nov 8, 2020 | Biden, civic virtue, Civility, Lincoln, Presidency
President-elect Biden: And to those who voted for President Trump, I understand your disappointment tonight. I’ve lost a couple of elections myself. But now, let’s give each other a chance. It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric. To lower the temperature. To see...
by jpitney | Jun 4, 2020 | Civic Education, civic virtue, History, Lincoln
Yuval Levin at National Review: A fuller sense of our own history must include a sense of the history of racial oppression in our country—a story which has not ended by any means. But it must also include a sense of the history of struggle against racial oppression, a...
