As 2023 comes to a close and 2024 looms on the horizon, let us take the opportunity to answer the call of Abraham Lincoln and rededicate ourselves to preserving liberty in an America run by would-be authoritarians.
Many of us no doubt feel some fear and trepidation going into 2024. It’s the presidential election year, and leftists both here in America and around the world seem determined to plunge us into tyranny, war, and chaos. But every generation of Americans has faced a major challenge — a war, a civil rights struggle, political violence. The victory or defeat is our choice. As Abraham Lincoln said back in 1838:
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
George Washington had a string of failures behind him when he dared the seemingly impossible crossing of the ice-filled Delaware River on Christmas night, and marched with his freezing men to victory at Trenton. Frederick Douglass escaped brutal slavery, from a hostile South to a largely-indifferent North — and went on to become one of the most widely known and highly respected abolitionist speakers. Abraham Lincoln had many losses and failures behind him when he managed to win the presidency, only to face a bloody civil war — but he saved the Union. U.S. Grant overcame early alcoholism and years of obstacles and disrespect to become a brilliant general and president, furthering civil rights. George Patton and Ronald Reagan both successfully took on enemies who were considered invincible. When have Americans not faced “impossible” tasks and powerful enemies, even from within?
Now it is our turn. We must be the heroes of today. The American Revolutionaries, the military and political champions of liberty and justice ever since, the men and women who fought and bled and died — we owe it to them to carry on their legacy. From Alexander Hamilton to Molly Pitcher, from John Adams to Booker T. Washington, from James Armistead Lafayette to Philip Sheridan, from Eddie Rickenbacker to Mitchell Paige, from Joseph McCarthy to Donald Trump, we have always been a nation of fighters, on the battlefield and in the halls of political power. Will our children and grandchildren thank us for refusing to comply with woke tyranny or will they condemn us for buckling and giving up the battle?
I would like to end with one more quote from Abraham Lincoln, this one from his immortal Gettysburg Address. Let it be our rallying call as we go into the new year. In your workplace, your church, your school board meeting, your voting place, and your neighborhood, be a champion of American liberty this year. Answer Lincoln’s plea, made over the graves of Union soldiers at Gettysburg: “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
