Now scrolling: The Gettysburg Address

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.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Portents on the First Month of the Year


It has been said that if you know how to spend January, you know how to spend the rest of your life.
Lincoln knew how to make the most out of January. Not only did he issue the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863, he also welcomed the first African American to a White House New Year’s Day reception in 1864, and broke his engagement to Mary Todd on January 1st, 1841 -- probably the wisest decision he ever made.

On January 8th, 1863, he appointed John Usher Secretary of the Interior, and on January 8th, 1864, he posed for this stunning photograph for Matthew Brady.

On January 17th, 1851, his father, Thomas Lincoln, passed away from a kidney ailment. Lincoln did not attend the funeral.
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