ABRAHAM LINCOLN, March 4, 1865 Inaugural address
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
It’s strange how, even today, Lincoln’s words are still not heeded: “With malice toward none; with charity for all.”
One hundred and thirty-nine years later, still to this day the States south of the Mason-Dixon line are held up as an example of racism in America. Still to this day, there are Southerners who refer to it all as “the War of Northern Aggression.”
Mind you, they’re wrong about the latter: it was the Grays who fired first upon Fort Sumpter, it should be remembered.
Yet still, generations later, it’s a wound yet-unhealed. Mostly healed, yet still slightly festering.
Sad, isn’t it?