Friends, a short time ago I happened upon a speech by Abraham Lincoln that was perfectly appropriate as a stern guide for the current times we are in: a genuine threat to every decent and democratic norm that is the inheritance bequeathed to us by those who preceded us in the grand experiment that is America.

That threat is the corpus of the Bush/Cheney administration that has appropriated to itself powers that were not even within the grasp of the earlier King George, and which would appropriate to itself whatever other powers it deems may be necessary and useful to ends that it alone defines and declares. The rationale employed in pursuit of those ends was the one warned of by Lincoln: perils to our national safety from some vague, external entity, the putting down of which required the agglomeration of the powers and authority sought.

Sadly, I am currently unable to locate the admonition by Lincoln I referred to, and would appreciate it greatly if anyone could summon it for me and for every American as well. I have scoured every source. The closest I have come to locating Lincoln’s counsel is the address that follows this introduction.

Before I present His words I would like to offer these words from Sir Edmond Burke, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” and to repeat an argument along these lines that I’ve noted frequently to a dear friend who is burdened by a family that is GOP to the marrow and to the point that not a member can see how it has and is abetting the evil that is threatening the very principles upon which the experiment was founded and upon which we depend for our survival as Americans.

My friend, on the plank of ‘peace in the family,’ chooses to remain silent before the family, to feel sick about it all while neither saying nor doing anything to relieve the sickness. The analogy is this: If I have a brother who voted for and yet supports a sheriff who has lynched a man, and if I continue to abide my brother quietly, by extension I am as tainted by the original sin as is the sheriff, as is my brother.

The argument I broach as counter to, “what would be the constructive use of raising the disruptive issue?” is that such silence rings somehow cowering, shallow and tragically supportive of the pervading evil. John F. Kennedy, on another topic but one that can be turned to our purposes today is that “…we will do these things and others, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Freedom and decency and honor are not easy, never were and never were supposed to be easy. George W Bush and those who support him, and by extension, by those who support those who support him are correct in one sense: Today we are under attack; every bit as much as we were on December 7, 1941 and on September 11, 2001.  They err terribly, however in where they contend is the source of the attack. It is, as Lincoln warned, from within. It is from they themselves. And I submit that ‘peace in the family’ and ‘peace among associates’ as a rationale for silence is such a cowardly out for standing up to the challenge, to standing to face the peril, to standing to honor those who bet their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor that this grand experiment might succeed

.— Ed Tubbs   

Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois

Abraham Lincoln

January 27, 1838

 There are now, and will hereafter be, many causes, dangerous in their tendency, which have not existed heretofore; and which are not too insignificant to merit attention. That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now, is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed, and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all, to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one. Then, all that sought celebrity and fame, and distinction, expected to find them in the success of that experiment. Their all was staked upon it: — their destiny was inseparably linked with it. Their ambition aspired to display before an admiring world, a practical demonstration of the truth of a proposition, which had hitherto been considered, at best no better, than problematical; namely, the capability of a people to govern themselves. If they succeeded, they were to be immortalized; their names were to be transferred to counties and cities, and rivers and mountains; and to be revered and sung, and toasted through all time. If they failed, they were to be called knaves and fools, and fanatics for a fleeting hour; then to sink and be forgotten. They succeeded. The experiment is successful; and thousands have won their deathless names in making it so. But the game is caught; and I believe it is true, that with the catching, end the pleasures of the chase. This field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they, too, will seek a field. It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then 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 among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.