Watch and listen...if you dare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJLJdrS_Go
In case you didn't know, it's Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, narrated
by Gregory Peck.
Here is the text:
"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history."
That is what he said. That is what Abraham Lincoln said.
"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this
administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal
significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery
trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to
the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the
responsibility." [Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862]
He was born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana, and lived in Illinois. And
this is what he said. This is what Abe Lincoln said.
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The
occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the
occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We
must disenthrall ourselves and then we will save our country." [Annual
Message to Congress, December 1, 1862]
When standing erect he was six feet four inches tall, and this is what
he said.
He said: "It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right and
wrong, throughout the world. It is the same spirit that says 'you toil
and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it
comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people
of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one
race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same
tyrannical principle." [Lincoln-Douglas debates, 15 October 1858]
Lincoln was a quiet man. Abe Lincoln was a quiet and a melancholy man.
But when he spoke of democracy, this is what he said.
He said: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This
expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the
extent of the difference, is no democracy."
Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of these United States, is
everlasting in the memory of his countrymen. For on the battleground at
Gettysburg, this is what he said:
He said: "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, and for the people shall not
perish from the earth."
--
No way, no how, no McCain!
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