“I have often and often,” said Franklin, “in the course of the session and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now, at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising, and not a setting, sun.”
TO MY FRIEND
From Franklin’s Will and Testament
My fine crabtree walking-stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of the Cap of Liberty, I give to my friend and the friend of Mankind, General Washington.
If it were a Sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it.
Benjamin Franklin
FEBRUARY 12
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the Nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all Nations.
Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare,
Gentle and merciful and just!
Who, in the fear of God, didst bear
The sword of power, a Nation’s trust!