Better Angels

“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

 Abraham Lincoln. 1st Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861

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Our better angels

. . . . Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Abraham Lincoln

First Inaugural Address

Monday, March 4, 1861

Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States.

February 12 is Lincoln’s birthday.

I’ve been thinking about these words today, which is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, a man widely considered to be among the greatest of United States presidents.

Abraham Lincoln’s birthday used to be a state holiday. If February 12 fell on a weekday, there was no school. We all knew who Lincoln was, what the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation were. We lived in the great prairie state whose slogan was, and is, The Land of Lincoln.  I always liked that. I liked knowing that good ol’ Abe spent a good part of his life, including the years leading up to his presidency, in Illinois. I still do.

” . . . the better angels of our nature”.

That simple phrase from the last paragraph, indeed, the last line of Lincoln’s first inaugural address, has always resonated with me.

Our better angels.

That we would all call upon those angels would be a great thing, don’t you agree?

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