Lincoln went on to explain,
It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time.
Before we begin any meeting of our organization, we recite this “sentiment” from that Declaration of July 4, 1776:
We hold these truths to be self-evident. We are all created equal. We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, governments are instituted among us, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
America is not perfect. However, when we understood and respected our Constitution and our founding principles of liberty, America brought more wealth, opportunity, and justice to more people than any other nation in history. That is the meaning of Liberty and Prosperity, New Jerseys motto since 1776.
Every summer, we distribute this message on postcards throughout the beach resorts of New Jersey. We encourage you to pick up and distribute these cards to your friends and young people in your family this summer, when we have so many visitors around. You can pick them up any time in the waterproof bins by the steps to our office at 453 Shore Road, Somers Point, New Jersey. You can get them at our breakfast discussions between 9:30 and 10:30AM any Saturday at the banquet room next to Sal’s Coal Fired Pizza, 501 New Road (corner of Groveland Ave.), Somers Point, NJ 08244. Or leave us a message at (609) 927-7333 or info@libertyandprosperity.com. We will be happy to mail or deliver them to you.
We also encourage you to donate to our organization so we can continue to print these and other cards. Please donate online on the home page or mail a check to “Liberty and Prosperity” at our Somers Point, NJ office. Thanks.
During the past sixty years, our media, schools, and Hollywood entertainment culture have ridiculed these ideas. They say “How could Abraham Lincoln or anybody else claim America was “conceived in liberty” if nearly 700,000 Black Americans were owned as slaves when that Declaration was made?”
Abraham Lincoln studied that contradiction and explained it. In 1859 and 1860 Lincoln carefully read and studied many letters and other documents written by the “Founding Fathers” who wrote our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. On February 27, 1860, Lincoln explained those documents and his conclusions in long, 7,000 word speech at Cooper Union College in New York City. Roughly half of the “Founding Fathers” owned black slaves and grew up when slavery was normal in most of the world. However, Lincoln carefully documented that most of them knew slavery was wrong and could no longer be justified. Most personally freed their own slaves, and adopted various laws to provide for the “ultimate extinction” of slavery in America. Click Here For Link to Excerpts of that Cooper Union Speech:
Our Founding Fathers were very familiar with the Bible Laws of Jubilee found in Chapter 25 of the Old Testament Book of Leviticus. It calls for all slaves to be free after 50 years. A passage from that Chapter was inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia years before. However, America did not free its slaves within that “appointed time”. That was because the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 and machines to mass produce cotton fabric in England created an enormous demand for cotton and slaves to grow and process it. This made cotton and slavery obscenely profitable. Although slavery ended in the northern states, it expanded greatly in the South.
When whites in the South refused to free their slaves after America’s “Jubiliee Year” in 1826, “agitation” in the rest of America to end slavery intensified during the next 25 years.
That “agitation” led to a four year Civil War. More than 2 million White, and 180,000 Black Americans fought in the Union Army and Navy in that war to end slavery. Roughly 350,000 of them died in that war. Some 310,000 were White and 40,000 were Black. Some 250,000 White Southerners died defending slavery. The cost of the war was enormous for both sides. That Civil War caused massive destruction in the South.
In his Second Inaugural Address of March 4, 1865, President Lincoln called that Civil War and its death, suffering, and destruction the punishment of a “just God” of Americans for allowing slavery to continue past its “appointed time”.
“The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. . . “
Above Image: Abraham Lincoln delivers his Second Inaugural Address from the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on March 4, 1865.
Click Here For Link to Complete Abraham Lincoln Second Inaugural Address of March 4, 1865:
LibertyAndProsperity.com is a tax-exempt, non-political education organization of roughly 200 citizens who mostly live near Atlantic City, New Jersey. We formed this group in 2003. We volunteer our time and money to maintain this website. We do our best to post accurate information. However, we admit we make mistakes from time to time. If you see any mistakes or inaccurate, misleading, outdated, or incomplete information in this or any of our posts, please let us know. We will do our best to correct the problem as soon as possible. Please email us at info@libertyandprosperity.com or telephone (609) 927-7333.
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