The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1922-02-11
LINCOLN F0RESAW
POSSIBLE DANGER
URGED NECESSITY FOR RESPECT
FOR LAW AND ORDER
Words of the Great Emancipator Es
pecialIy Significant in the Turmoil
of the World Today.

III LIS MIS- $500
now too little known, Abraham Lincoln
forecast many of the present day
political and social conditions. The
theme of this speech was the danger
to American institutions that would
come from within and the need for
O greater respect for law and order.
an the great journal of things hap
pening under the SUM- said Mr.. Lin
coin. tive, the American people, find
our account running the date of the
Nineteenth century of the Christian
era. We find ourselves in the peaceful
possession of the fairest portion of the
earth as regards extent of territory,
fertility Of soil and salubrity of
climate. We find ourselves under the
government of a system of political IN
situations conducting more essentially
TO the ends of civil and religious
liberty than any of which the history
of former times tells us.
"We, when mounting the stage of
existence. found ourselves the legal
inheritors of these fundamental bles-
sings. We toiled not in the acquire
ment or establishment of them, they
are a legacy bequeathed to us by once
a hardy, brave, and patriotic, but new
lamented and departed, race of our
ancestors. Theirs was the task (and
nobly they performed it) to possess
themselves, and through themselves
us, of this goodly land, and to uprear
upon its hills and its valleys a political
ediice of liberty and equal rights; It's
ours only to transmit these-the
former unprofaned by the foot of an
invader. the latter undecayed by the
lapse of time and uniform by usurpa-
tion-to the latest generation that fate
shall permit the world to know. This
task of gratitude to our fathers. jus
tice, to ourselves, duty to posterity
and love for our species in general all
i%mperatively require us faithfully to
perform.
"How. then, shall we perform it? At
what point shall we expect the APP
proach of danger? BY what means
shall we fortify against it? Shall we
expect some transatlantic military
giant to step the ocean and crush us
at a blow? Never,
"All the armies of Europe. Asia, and
Africa combined, with all the treasure
of the earth (our own eXcepted) in
their military chest. with a B%onaparte
for a commander, could not by force
take n drink from the Ohio or make
a track on the Blue ridge In a trial of
a thousand years,
AT what point is the approach of
danger to be expected? l answer, if
it ever reaches us it must spring up
amongst us; it cannot come from
abroad. If destruction be our lot we
must ourselves be its author and
inisher. As a nation of free men we
must live through all time. or die by
suicide"
After giving some examples of the
evil effects on the innocent as well as
he guilty, which occurred in the
,peration Of mob v%iolences, Mr.. Lin
oln continued:
81 know the American people are
auch attached to their government |
now they would suffer much for its
AXE; | know they would endure evils
ng and patiently before they would
yer think of exchanging it for another
yet. notwithstanding all this, If the
avs be continually disregarded and
lespised, If their rights to be secure
in their persons and property are held
by no better tenure than the caprice
of a mob, the alienation of their atfec-
tons from the government Is the
natural consequence, and TO that
sooner or later 1t must come.
Here, then, is one point from which
danger must be expected.
"The question recurs, How shall we
fortify against itY
1.-THE answer is simple. Let every
American, every lover of liberty, every
weii-wisher to his posterity swear by
the blood of tine Revolution V to
violate In the least particular the laws