Abraham Lincoln Warned Us About the Dangers of Donald Trump
September 23, 2018 in Blogs
In 1838, when he was a twenty-nine-year-old Illinois state legislator, Abraham Lincoln foresaw the coming of Donald Trump.
Lincoln warned of him, or someone like him, in a speech championing the rule of law over racist-driven mob rule. He was addressing the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, on the evening of January 27, 1838. He spoke on “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.”
The original Lyceum was a gymnasium near Athens in ancient Greece where Aristotle thought and taught. In Lincoln’s time the Springfield Lyceum was organized as a speaking venue for prominent young, up-climbing men. For several years in the mid-1830s it was a leading player in the cultural life of Springfield.
In Lincoln’s Lyceum speech he spoke of the hills and valleys of “this goodly land,” on which the Founding Fathers up-reared “a political edifice of liberty and equal rights”—and transmitted it to us.
Lincoln spoke of our duty to the Fathers to in turn transmit this edifice “unprofaned by the foot of an invader… undecayed by the lapse of time, and untorn by usurpation—to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know.” He spoke of this as a “task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general” that “imperatively requires us faithfully to perform.”
And he spoke of the danger to this edifice. “At what point,” he asked, “shall we expect the approach of danger?” He predicted, “If it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us.” He did not believe it could come from abroad. He believed that “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”
Is it unreasonable, Lincoln asked in that speech 180 years ago, “to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up amongst us?”
And when such a one does rise up amongst us, …read more
Source: ALTERNET
Recent Comments