and Sprinkles on Top

Happy 200th Mr. Lincoln

Posted on 12. Feb, 2009 by Deb in Observations

Today is the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. The 16th President of the United States, serving during a time of stress and strife for the Nation – the Civil War (or “War Between the States” or “War of Northern Aggression”).  I am not eloquent enough to express the greatness of this man, but will leave you with his own words….

Engraved on the walls are two of Lincoln’s most famous speeches. His Second Inaugural Address (on the North Wall) and The Gettysburg Address (on the South Wall), the text of which is below:

Four score and seven 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.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—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.

The images are mine, of the Lincoln Memorial, both taken in April 2008.

Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Memorial