We Miss You, Abe
Dear Abe,
Just wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday. Love ya! And I miss you.
Thanks for giving our country, my country a “New Birth of Freedom! You’re 211 years old now. And everything you told us about ourselves is still true. Every syllable. I was reading that speech you wrote when you were still very young, Twenty-eight I think before anyone knew who you were.
Let me repeat it here to refresh your memory–
“Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush [our country] at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.”
Since you were taken from us that April night, the issues really haven’t changed much. Are we still able to govern ourselves? Does the power of the court like in Dred Scott, give jurists in the name of freedom the power to deprive the vulnerable of their lives? We have something called Roe v Wade now that is just Dred Scott by another name. We still have people among us that believe that some humans are persons and others are not–that some are worthy of the protection of law and others really have no right that the rest of us are obliged to respect. We still have people who believe that when elections do not give them the results they desire–as free men and women, they have the right to disobey the law, conspire and resist and destroy the authority of our duly elected government. You should know. You lived through a challenged very much like ours today.
You were right, You always had a way of being right when others lost their way. You were right about the nature of freedom and the issue of whether this “last best hope” can survive. There is no power on earth that can destroy our freedom or the genius of our country, but we ourselves. As you said in that wonderful fine speech– “As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.”
We miss you Abe.
