Abraham Lincoln: A History Lesson on Right to Life, Liberty & Pursuit

The following words were spoken by Abraham Lincoln in 1839:

“Many free countries have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers; but if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I NEVER DESERTED HER.

I know that great volcano at Washington, aroused and directed by the Evil spirit that reigns there, is belching forth the lava of POLITICAL CORRUPTION -- in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping with frightful velocity over the whole length and breadth of The Land -- bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot or living thing. On its bosom are riding, LIKE DEMONS on the WAVES OF HELL, the imps of that evil spirit, fiendishly taunting all those who dare resist its destroying course with the hopelessness of their effort.

And, knowing this, I CANNOT deny that ALL may be swept away. Broken by it, I too, may be. BOW to it, I NEVER WILL. The probability that we may fall in the struggle OUGHT NOT DETER US from the support of a cause we believe to be just... IT SHALL NOT DETER ME.

If ever I feel the SOUL within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its ALMIGHTY ARCHITECT, it is when I contemplate The Cause of my Country (The Declaration of Independence) deserted by ALL the WORLD beside, and I STANDING UP BOLDLY & ALONE, and hurling DEFIANCE at her victorious oppressors.

Here, without contemplating consequences -- before HIGH HEAVEN and in the face of the world -- I swear ETERNAL FIDELITY to the just cause, as I deem it, of The Land of my "Life, my Liberty, and my Love."

And who that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt the oath that I take? Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But if, after all, we shall fail, be it so, we still shall have the Proud Consolation of saying to our Consciences, and to the Departed Shade of Our Country’s Freedom, that the cause approved of our judgment, and adored of our Hearts -- in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death -- WE NEVER FALTERED IN DEFENDING!!”

President Abraham Lincoln, Speech, Springfield, Illinois, Dec 20, 1839. I, 137, in Archer H. Shaw, The Lincoln Encyclopedia (New York: Macmillan, 1950), p. 64. Full quote from Project Gutenberg
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A personal note by Patrick S. Read:

"Life -- Liberty -- and Pursuit." If one equal and inherent right falls, so can & have they all. No one has "more" rights than anyone else. There is no such thing as "more equal rights" than any other.

DEFEND THE EQUAL RIGHT TO LIFE. Or God help us all, we will be owned by Government, who has already stolen Human-kind's God-given Right to INDEPENDENCE, and we may then revert to a dependent people on Government, once again -- mere serfs & subjects who lack any God given rights, at all!