"I do the very best I know how — the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."
Ann: President Lincoln, Is there something you would like to say here?
Abraham Lincoln: Yes. I don’t imagine you expected to hear from me, and, tell the truth, I didn’t expect myself to be involved again in sorting out the shenanigans that people can get into when you let politicians have a taste of power.
I won my second election for President, but, as you might recall, that was a short lived victory. I can smile now to think that all the plans I made became the inspiration for the opposition in my party to go and do otherwise. You know, you just can't tell what might happen.
As you may know, I favored binding us together, not retaliating against the South. I didn’t think meanness pays, and I still don’t. It was otherwise with members of my party, and my successor put a world of hurt on the defeated folks who had already lost their world, their livelihoods, and their families. What would have happened if we had treated folks fairly? Wonder if that might have trickled down....
Nobody really welcomed the blacks as free citizens at that time, and you can see from this election that there is still a strong contingent of folks still hold that misguided opinion.
But look around you, no matter who wins this one election, you can’t erase the accomplishments of the many who have entered society and government at its highest levels.
It may not look that much like it, but a lot has been accomplished in this election. Certainly not as much as we had hoped, but, my friends, change doesn’t happen in a flash, from bad to good, dark to light all at once.
There is struggle, then change, yes, but usually it kinda creeps up on us. Then it gets shoved back, and then it creeps up again. And that’s what’s happening here. It’s like the tide. The tide of the rights of men – and women – simply cannot be resisted indefinitely.
If we lose this round, we will win the next one, because we will suffer through the interim and see how much worse it can be.
It is hard to watch, I know, and worse to live, but this time that tide has crept in too far to turn around. It may recede a little, but it can’t be stopped because you can only hold your finger in the dyke for so long before the wall holding that tide in check collapses.
So keep inching forward. You don't really have a choice unless you want to become part of the problem, and we can’t let that happen, can we?
That’s why I came here today, to let you know that we have made progress, we are making it now, and we will push on until freedom is a right for every single citizen.
November 5, 2020
*Lincoln quoted by Francis Bicknell Carpenter in his book, Six Months at the White House written in 1866.