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View Full Version : Happy B'day, ABE!


Ole Glory
02-12-2010, 08:33 AM
Today is the 201st Birthday of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln President Abraham Lincoln

In his first term in office, Abraham Lincoln found himself waging an unpopular war.

Politics vied with war as Lincoln's major preoccupation in the presidency. The war, which was originally supposed to be over in six months, had dragged on for more than two years with large casualties. The American people were tired of fighting the war and were urging President Lincoln to end it and bring the troops home.

The Constitution protected slavery in peace, but in war, Lincoln came to believe, the commander in chief could abolish slavery as a military necessity. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of Sept. 22, 1862, bore this military justification, as did all of Lincoln's racial measures, including especially his decision in the final proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, to accept blacks in the army. By 1864, Democrats and Republicans differed clearly in their platforms on the race issue: Lincoln's endorsed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery, whereas McClellan, a Democrat, pledged to return to the South the rights it had had in 1860, including the rights to hold slaves.

Abraham Lincoln Second Inaugural

Abraham Lincoln was reelected for a second term. He was a great orator. The following excerpt from his second inaugural speech indicates what the character of Lincoln was and illustrates his personal determination to eliminate the scourge of slavery.

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

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."


Let us spend a minute to remember this man's greatness and determination. He was the first in a line of Presidents who stood for Liberty.