Abraham Lincoln, at age 28, quoted by Ken Burns on CNN the other night, and sounding as if it had been written today, about current American affairs:
"Whence shall we xpect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic giant step the Earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track in the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we will live through all time, or die by suicide."
Speech to the Young Men's Lyceum in Springfield
