Lincoln’s Thanksgiving

Transcript for President Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation from October 3, 1863  The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we...

Reagan on Lincoln

  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...

Character and Unity

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...

Civility and Rhetoric

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...

Judging Abraham Lincoln

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...