DH just gave me this lovely little tidbit for my own blog post. Can’t help sharing with other folks.

The More Things Change… A Review by Doug Brown (Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime: From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism)

Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism by Geoffrey R. Stone

Debating Polk’s declaration of war on Mexico in 1848, Abraham Lincoln’s law partner argued the president should have the right to declare war on another country to repel invasion. In an amazingly prescient bit of writing, Lincoln disagreed: “Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purposes, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, ‘I see no probability of the British invading us’; but he will say to you, ‘Be silent; I see it, if you don’t.'”

Interesting, huh…?

Have I ever mentioned that there was a book in the library at my elementary school, which I always sought out and which (if such records still existed) would probably prove to be the only book I checked out more than once? It contained the lyrics to a whole bunch of songs, including the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I could listen to that song all day – even though the lord she wrote about isn’t mine.

Here are the lyrics, just so I can find them again, without digging through my lyric books. BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

And finally, in honor of the man whose name has become synonymous with the word freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr.: I Have a Dream

Speech delivered August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. (70 days before my birth, 86 days before the death of JFK).

How far we have come, and yet…