Fly Your Flag on Abraham Lincoln's Birthday – February 12, 2009

200 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States of America, was born. A man from humble beginnings, he led this nation through what is still considered today as the most tragic war we have ever waged – the Civil War. President Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1965 by John Wilkes Booth after Booth attended an April 11th speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks.

He is most famously known for giving the Gettysburg Address, a speech that was secondary to others given on that day but now regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history.

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow...this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 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.”

November 18, 1963

President Lincoln's birthday used to signify an important date in our history that was celebrated in schools around the country. Unfortunately, this day has been forever lumped into Presidents Day, which in many school districts has been dropped from the typical holiday schedule altogether.

Continue the celebration and commemoration of this truly heroic figure in American politics and the day of his birth by flying your flag. Show your children, your neighbors, the world, that you honor the memory of this great man.