Category Archives: lincoln

Abraham Lincoln, “Remarks to Baltimore Presbyterian Synod, Washington, D.C.”

Note: As far as I can tell, there are no copies of the pri­mary source below online. The text is from the Library of Amer­ica, Lincoln’s Speeches and Writ­ings 1859–1865, ed. Don Fehren­bacher, copy­right 1989. I am open to claims about the authen­tic­ity of the text, but extended com­ment fol­lows below nonethe­less. Remarks to Bal­ti­more …

July 5, 2010 – 5:31 am | By ashok | Posted in lincoln, politics | Comments (6)

Abraham Lincoln, “Letter to Ephraim D. and Phoebe Ellsworth”

Let­ter to Ephraim D. and Phoebe Ellsworth, 5.5.1861 Abra­ham Lin­coln To the Father and Mother of Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth: My dear Sir and Madam, In the untimely loss of your noble son, our afflic­tion here, is scarcely less than your own. So much of promised use­ful­ness to one’s coun­try, and of bright hopes for one’s …

May 31, 2010 – 1:42 pm | By ashok | Posted in lincoln, politics | Comments (5)

Abraham Lincoln, “Proclamation of Thanksgiving”

By the Pres­i­dent of the United States of Amer­ica. A Procla­ma­tion. The year that is draw­ing towards its close, has been filled with the bless­ings of fruit­ful fields and health­ful skies. To these boun­ties, which are so con­stantly enjoyed that we are prone to for­get the source from which they come, oth­ers have been added, …

November 26, 2009 – 2:45 pm | By ashok | Posted in lincoln, politics | Comments (3)

November 19, 1863 — Today the Gettysburg Address was delivered

But you say you are con­ser­v­a­tive — emi­nently con­ser­v­a­tive — while we are rev­o­lu­tion­ary, destruc­tive, or some­thing of the sort. What is con­ser­vatism? Is it not adher­ence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, con­tend for, the iden­ti­cal old pol­icy on the point in con­tro­versy which was adopted by …

November 19, 2009 – 9:42 am | By ashok | Posted in lincoln, links, politics | Comments (3)

Happy Thanksgiving!

My plan for today is to go comatose in front of the tele­vi­sion — I hope your day is just as joy­ous. Lincoln’s Thanks­giv­ing Procla­ma­tion is inter­est­ing read­ing: it is very dif­fi­cult to con­ceive how any­one in the US could have been in a cel­e­brat­ing mood in 1863. The ques­tion is, what is the rela­tion …

November 27, 2008 – 3:34 pm | By ashok | Posted in lincoln | Comments (4)