The one blessing of the current crisis stemming from the Democrat/radical left attempt to steal the Presidency from Donald Trump is that you now know firsthand the emotions, thoughts and fears that filled the minds and hearts of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and Lincoln. History, when you read about it, can be an arid, frigid affair. It can be a jumble of dates, names and places that have little relevance to your current life.
But now history becomes real. As you fret over the widespread criminality uncovered in this Presidential election, you are experiencing the same heavy weight that pressed on the souls of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin as they came to the decision to declare independence from the King of England. This was not a choice about whether to have one’s coffee black or with milk. This was a moment of decision that required people to put their lives and riches at risk.
The founders of America were rebelling against the super power of the 18th Century. England was a global empire, backed up by a vast navy and hardened army. England had the money and the manpower to crush the upstart American colonists. If a global stock market existed then, the money would have flowed to England.
The proclamation of America’s Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July did not force the British to surrender. They stepped up the military campaign and began conquering key parts of the colonies. Our patriot forefathers and fore-mothers had no guarantee, no promise of success. And the events following that Declaration led many in the colonies to question the sanity of those who embarked on what was a seemingly impossible task–creating a Republic. But there were others, their names now lost to history, who joined themselves with the patriots who started the rebellion and took up arms. Again, no assurance that they would survive and that their homes would remain secure.
You no longer need to imagine George Washington’s emotions as he trudged through the snowy paths of the Valley Forge encampment trying to buck up the spirits of a ragged, freezing, starving army of volunteers. His army had fled in the face of the British, who captured Philadelphia. His men were now hanging on to fading hopes of a viable path to victory. He could not promise adequate food or clothing. Men lacked rifles and ammunition. Sadness, fear and doubt surely haunted him as it now haunts you. Yet, George Washington did not waver. He believed in what he was doing and did not doubt the righteousness of the cause. You are walking with General Washington among his suffering troops.
I cited Abraham Lincoln above in tandem with the patriots of the American Revolution. He faced challenges as daunting and terrifying as those that beset the founders of the American Republic. He did not enjoy widespread popular support. In fact, he was treated as a pariah:
Lincoln, like Trump, was furiously attacked in the media. Newspapers called him a demon, a buffoon, a miserable failure, a disgrace to the nation. “The man who votes for Lincoln now is a traitor,” one Wisconsin paper asserted when he ran for reelection in 1864.
Sound familiar?
During the summer of 1864, Lincoln was certain he would not be re-elected. He had no major victories to claim on the bloody battlefields that tattooed the American landscape and people in the Union were growing weary of the slaughter. Lincoln received several troubling messages. Thurlow Weed’s warning to the President is representative:
“Thurlow Weed, an expert on such matters, recently had informed him that his reëlection was impossible, the electorate being “wild for peace.” Now there came a letter from Henry J. Raymond, editor of the friendly New York Times and chairman of the Republican National Executive Committee, who said much the same thing.
Excerpt From: Shelby Foote. “The Civil War: A Narrative.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-civil-war-a-narrative/id419260130)
“I feel compelled to drop you a line,” he wrote, “concerning the political condition of the country as it strikes me. I am in active correspondence with your staunchest friends in every state, and from them all I hear but one report. The tide is setting strongly against us.” Oliver Morton, Simon Cameron, and Elihu Washburne had respectively warned the New Yorker that Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Illinois were probably lost by now. Moreover, he told Lincoln, he was convinced that his own state “would go 50,000 against us tomorrow. And so of the rest. Nothing but the most resolute action on the part of the government and its friends can save the country from falling into hostile hands.”
Bearing these burdens and battling these fears carved lines into Abraham Lincoln’s visage that became iconic. Now, as you wrestle with fright as you imagine what a turn to socialism will do this Republic, I am certain you are feeling physically sick. It is natural that your mind is churning.
Do not succumb to the fear. Be like Washington. Be like Lincoln. Persevere. Fight for what you know is right. Take hope that there are still patriots on the front-line, in and out of government, unwilling to surrender to the fraud and the lies being spread by many in the media–both mainstream and social.
If you fly the American flag outside your home, consider hanging it upside down.
Hanging the flag upside down is a signal that the owner of the flag is in extreme danger. The person’s life or property has to be threatened. If the flag is hung upside down, military personnel recognize this as a call for help.
There are many across this land who have faced violence at the hands of the Antifa mob. This is not an imaginary threat. Just ask the McClusky’s of Saint Louis.
Your duty is to walk proudly. You walk the same path traveled by the men and women who put their very lives on the line to secure liberty and preserve the Union. We must pray and we must act. Inaction and apathy are nothing more than surrender.
I am sure several of you reading this have experienced the horror of you or a loved one being diagnosed with cancer or other terminal disease. You did not surrender to the diagnosis. You sought treatment and you endured suffering. Some may have perished. But there are many of you who endured and were cured. That is the state of our nation today–we are infected with a terrible disease and must quash it by seeking, together, a cure.
One of your best, bro
This would have been a good article if you’d left out Lincoln. Most people don’t know that he lacked support in much of the North for the war they blamed on him. The district where I grew up in West Tennessee was represented by a Congressman, Emerson Etheridge, who was opposed to secession as were many throughout Tennessee. (As many or more Tennesseans fought for the North as for the Confederacy.) He supported Lincoln right up until he came out with his “Emancipation Proclamation,” which really didn’t emancipate anyone. Several Northern Congressman opposed him because he more or less threw the Constitution on the ground and trampled it with his feet. Before Lincoln, the United States had Constitutional government. Since then, the country has become a dictatorship.