I have been thinking for several days about what to do in honor of the upcoming Presidential Inauguration. Then it occurred to me that with a lot of people harking back to the heady days of Abraham Lincoln, that I should be doing the same thing. So I decided to spend today looking through my set of the “Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln” and other books for a Lincoln quote. A quote that if I had the power to make sure President Obama would read and consider, this would be it. After much deliberation I have come to my selection, as quoted from “The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty,” May 1955, p. 7). Now this is not a famous quote I have selected as I immediately dismissed all those as surely Obama has read them many times. So I looked deeper than usual for something I have not seen before (or at least do not remember seeing) and something that hit a nerve with me. Here it is:
That some should be rich shows that others may become rich and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently to build one for himself…I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will be wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich.
Obviously Lincoln was talking about property rights and as outlined in the Declaration of Independence that each of us has the right to the “pursuit of Happiness.” It is not a right to be happy, but it is our natural right to be able to pursue happiness. And so in closing, may we all work hard enough and be lucky enough to have that happiness.
May God bless President Obama and may these next four years indeed bring a change we can count on and a change for the better.
UPDATE (1/20): This is abosolutely amazing: BBC World News America has unearthed a fascinating clip of Dr. Martin Luther King speaking to the BBC’s Bob McKenzie in 1964 in which Dr. King predicts an African-American president “in less than 40 years.”
Great quote! Thanks for researching and sharing this perspective.
Agreed, Great Quote. And good work buddy!