History: Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address

GRAND OLD PARTISAN, 3/4/2009 - On this day in 1865, Abraham Lincoln (R-IL) delivered his second inaugural address. The President concluded with this classic appeal for magnanimity:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Hearing that Frederick Douglass (R-MD) was being denied entry to the inaugural ball, Lincoln ordered that he be allowed in. The Great Emancipator greeted him with "Here comes my friend Douglass" and shook his hand. He then asked Douglass his opinion of the speech. "Mr. President," he replied, "that was a sacred effort."

Michael Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the country [***Speaking at Dorchester 2009***]. He is the author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, cited by Clarence Thomas in a Supreme Court decision. Each day, the Grand Old Partisan blog celebrates 155 years of Republican heroes and heroics. See www.RepublicanBasics.com for more information. Read More......

Inaugural: A 'Responsibility' Era

WSJ OPINION JOURNAL - A pragmatic call to Americans to lift our national game.

Whatever your partisan inclinations, the sight yesterday of two million Americans cheering the peaceful transfer of power to a new President should stir some patriotic pride. Mr. Obama more than met the moment with an Inaugural Address that invoked America's historical purposes and optimism, as well as a bracing challenge to lift -- as he might put it in a less formal setting -- our national game.


We were especially taken with President Obama's call for "a new era of responsibility." This is the phrase his press folks had leaked the day before, and if they did so to drive the theme home, so much the better. This is a useful message for Americans of all walks of life to hear -- from Wall Street CEOs to unmarried fathers to AARP lobbyists in Washington. The prosperity of recent decades has produced a culture of entitlement and sometimes even of complacency. Read full article at WSJ...

See AP photos of the Inauguration at The Frame (Sacramento Bee)...

Read Mark Steyn's response to Tom Brokaw's clueless reference to the Velvet Revolution... Read More......