Right Makes Might

Seven score and eight years ago a good speaker was invited to New York to speak on anything he wanted to. Press coverage of his Illinois debates against Sen. Douglas had reached even New York. So the elete of the City decided they also wanted to see and hear the rail splitter. He delivered a well researched 90 minute speech on how the majority of our Founding Fathers had spoken out against slavery even though some of them had been slave owners themselves. His name was Abe Lincoln and although relatively unknown and no one recognizing nor welcoming him as he arrived by train. That night by what he had said, the powerful of New York realized they may have just heard from the next President of the United States. He had aroused the conscience of this nation. They kept him on the east coast giving speeches until his wife demanded he come back home to Illinois. A few months later his powerful words had swept him into the Presidency.

" Let us have faith that Right makes Might, and in that Faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it," Lincoln said in his speech at New York's Coopers Union. And as he was boarding the train in Springfield for DC after his election, he said, "I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail."
I think those who like to fantasize that this nation has not strong Godly roots will have stopped reading this by now. But to those of us who know better, I think these words of Lincoln apply here today to this nation. I think this election is the most important to the course of this nation for the last 148 years. Right still does make Might, and Without the assistance of that Divine Being who attended Washington and Lincoln we cannot succeed. With that assistance we cannot fail.
Weigh this election very carefully, vote your conscience, this long war on terror we can not escape, but with wise decisions, and with Faith in our Maker, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it. And with reassurance that with that Divine assistance we cannot and will not fail.

The Press during the days of the civil war, liked after a year or so, to refer to it as, "Mr Lincoln's War". People tire of war quickly and wish it were not happening, wish it not necessary to be happening. But sometimes as is now, war is necessary. And we must be about doing our duty as we understand it. I doubt if jobs and healthcare were on the front burner in those days, nor should they be now. If we loose this war those issues will really not matter at all. They dogged President Lincoln about his war until the fall of 1863 when he went to Gettysburg and spoke but a few words at a cemetery dedication. But in those words he gave them all something to think about besides themselves.

These clouds of terror, which have circled our world will not leave with appeasement. There will be no draft of our young people, as this nation is blessed with young men and women who appreciate that which this nation is about. The appeasers who would appease the terrorist just have it all wrong. They would have us join the captivity crowd who appeased Germany and Japan in the second world war. But they would wish it to succeed, until the doors of defeat are slamed in our face.

Lincoln challenged us then and I believe still in 2008, to be about the great task remaining before us. "That from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their lives. And 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 this earth.