Existing comment:
A few weeks before his 29th birthday, Abraham Lincoln addressed the Young Mens' Lyceum. He responded to the question, "Do the signs of the present times indicate the downfall of this Government?" His remarks -- known as the "Lyceum Speech" -- are an important Lincoln text, containing clues about the developing mind of the future president. Lincoln was writing in a period when many Americans feared that vigilantism and mobocracy threatened their society. Lincoln's speech, entitled "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions", still has relevance today:
"...[L]et every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty... Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe... Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges... In short, let it become the political religion of the Nation..." |