We are a nation divided over a hundred issues, bristling over a thousand fronts, erupting on countless great and small battlefields among us, as we are becoming a nation of diametric opposites.
Early in his political career, Abraham Lincoln made a very observant comment on America’s unique geo-political circumstances in the world when he noted: “All the armies of Europe and Asia…could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. … If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we live through all time or die by suicide.”
Lincoln’s life was given to a central trial when our nation was committing suicide, when a pair of revolutionary twins assumed opposite sides over two issues: slavery and the relative independence of the states. The Civil War was conducted over a continent, with three major theaters of conflict, 50 major battles, and another hundred significant battles among 10,500 military engagements. The dedication of Lincoln to preserve the Union and destroy every vestige of slavery cost the United States over 1,000,000 casualties. But the republic survived with its founding constitutional design, strengthened by amendments necessary to universal liberty.
