Presidents - Our Lost Founding Archives

John F. Kennedy: “Our time and for all time…”

On this day in 1967, the body of President John F. Kennedy is moved to a permanent resting site at Arlington National Cemetery, just a few feet from the original site.

Kennedy had been assassinated more than three years earlier, on November 22, 1963.

Here are the closing words from the luncheon speech he never gave that day:

“We in this country, in this generation are, by destiny rather than choice, the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of “peace on earth, goodwill toward men.” That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago, “Except the Lord Keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

Eternal

JFK was a World War II veteran so he qualified for a plot at Arlington National Cemetery. Reportedly, the spring before he died he remarked to a friend that the view of the Potomac from the Custis-Lee Mansion at Arlington was “so magnificent I could stay forever.”

Symbolically, the eternal flame marking his final resting place is fueled by a natural gas line. A continuous electronic flashing spark reignites the flame if it is extinguished by rain or wind.

May the flame lit by our shared faith, founding, and freedom never die out!

March 14, 2019/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

Ronald Reagan: Freedom Under God or Evil Empire?

On this day in 1983, President Ronald Reagan publicly refers to the Soviet Union as “an evil empire.”

This excerpt is from about halfway through the still relevant speech:
“Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged. When our Founding Fathers passed the First Amendment, they sought to protect churches from government interference. They never intended to construct a wall of hostility between government and the concept of religious belief itself.

The evidence of this permeates our history and our government. The Declaration of Independence mentions the Supreme Being no less than four times. “In God We Trust” is engraved on our coinage. The Supreme Court opens its proceedings with a religious invocation. And the members of Congress open their sessions with a prayer. I just happen to believe the schoolchildren of the United States are entitled to the same privileges as Supreme Court Justices and Congressmen.”

Good and Evil Empire

Then, Reagan famously says “evil empire” in the final third of the speech:

“So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority. You know, I’ve always believed that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church. So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride — the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.

I ask you to resist the attempts of those who would have you withhold your support for our efforts, this administration’s efforts, to keep America strong and free, while we negotiate real and verifiable reductions in the world’s nuclear arsenals and one day, with God’s help, their total elimination.”

Our Lost Founding would add that as (a) people this struggle will always plague us, both personally and nationally.

March 8, 2019/2 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

Abraham Lincoln, African-Americans, Civil War, Presidents, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding

MO Compromise, Dred Scott decision, and No Compromise

On this day in 1820, President James Monroe signs the Missouri Compromise. The bill attempted to equalize the number of slave-holding states and free states in the country. Missouri, and that very Compromise would become pivotal in the Dred Scott Decision, issued also on this day, in 1857.

The United States Supreme Court was divided along slavery and antislavery lines, but had a majority of Southern justices. Thus, the Court ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. Ultimately, the court decided that Dred Scott had no legal right to request his freedom.

Even so, following the Dred Scott decision, Frederick Douglass urged his audiences to “walk by faith, not by sight.”

It will cease to be divided

Then, in June of 1858, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech centered on the Dred Scott case. The words of Jesus, as recorded in the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, mark Lincoln’s famous “house divided” speech:

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” (emphasis added)
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.
Have we no tendency to the latter condition?
Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination — piece of machinery so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska doctrine, and the Dred Scott decision.”

From this speech alone Lincoln’s appreciation for the Bible is clear. Still, another quote from Lincoln about “this great book” inspired our “Lincoln Bible” shirt.

March 6, 2019/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

Abraham Lincoln, Presidents, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding

Amnesty, Allegiance, and Almighty

On this day in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issues his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. His hope was to facilitate reintegration, reorganization and reconstruction in the the postwar South.

Also on this day, in 1941, as indicated in Our December 7th post entitled Pearl Harbor: So Help us God, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made an oath on behalf of the United States when he asked Congress to declare war on Japan in response to the “unprovoked and dastardly” attack on Pearl Harbor.

He said:
With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God.”

With that in mind, one authorization of Lincoln’s Proclamation allowed for a new state government to be formed when ten percent of eligible voters took an oath of allegiance to the United States. Naturally, that phrase is included in the oath, again emphasizing the intent and obligation of the oath giver.

Permanent Preservation

Whereas, it is now desired by some persons heretofore engaged in said rebellion to resume their allegiance to the United States, and to reinaugurate loyal state governments within and for their respective states: Therefore–

“I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known to all persons who have, directly or by implication, participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, that a full pardon is hereby granted to them and each of them, with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves, and in property cases where rights of third parties shall have intervened, and upon the condition that every such person shall take and subscribe an oath, and thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate; and which oath shall be registered for permanent preservation, and shall be of the tenor and effect following, to wit:–

“I, , do solemnly swear, in presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all acts of congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified, or held void by congress, or by decision of the supreme court; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the supreme court. So help me God.”

December 8, 2018/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

Civil Rights Movement, Presidents, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding

Martin Luther King Jr. recognized with Federal Holiday

On this day in 1983, President Ronald Reagan signs the bill designating a federal holiday to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January, close to his birthday on the fifteenth.

Let Freedom Ring

Next, what follows are several excerpts from President Reagan’s Remarks on Signing the Bill:

“Dr. King had awakened… a sense that true justice must be colorblind, and that among white and black Americans, as he put it, “Their destiny is tied up with our destiny, and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom; we cannot walk alone.
…
Across the country, he organized boycotts, rallies, and marches. Often he was beaten, imprisoned, but he never stopped teaching nonviolence. “Work with the faith”, he told his followers, “that unearned suffering is redemptive.”
…
[M]ost important, there was not just a change of law; there was a change of heart. The conscience of America had been touched. Across the land, people had begun to treat each other not as blacks and whites, but as fellow Americans.
…
But traces of bigotry still mar America. So, each year on Martin Luther King Day, let us not only recall Dr. King, but rededicate ourselves to the Commandments he believed in and sought to live every day: Thou shall love thy God with all thy heart, and thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. And I just have to believe that all of us—if all of us, young and old, Republicans and Democrats, do all we can to live up to those Commandments, then we will see the day when Dr. King’s dream comes true, and in his words, “All of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, ‘… land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.'”

Thank you, God bless you, and I will sign it.”

November 2, 2018/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding