The Gettysburg Address Scholarship Fund

The scholarship fund will be a 10-year commitment of distributing $500 to selected individuals at some of the most prestigious HIGH SCHOOLS IN ALL FIFTY STATES OF USA!!!. The oration will be conducted 5-10 days before the graduation ceremony where a three-person panel conducted by the dean's office will decide on one winner every year.

Why Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

My years of reading books on the life and times of Abraham Lincoln has given me the opportunity to leave a LEGACY OF SERVICE TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! When the film LINCOLN was released there was a booklet with 13 essays. At the end of the essays was a discussion between KARL WEBER and ANDREW FERGUSON (Ferguson's Father had worked for the Robert Lincoln law firm. FERGUSON called the Gettysburg Address a GEM. Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book A TEAM OF RIVALS quotes LINCOLN was our FOUNDATION OF PRINCIPAL is the JEWEL given by our FOUNDING FATHERS.

FERGUSON then speaks of two LINCOLN BOOKS one by BENJAMIN THOMAS (1902-1956) and the other by LORD CHARNWOOD (1864-1945) equally in arriving at a similar conclusion about Abraham Lincoln. LINCOLN is rarely understood by many as to WHY the UNION SOLDIERS CALLED HIM 'FATHER ABRAHAM'. The MORAL CHARACTER of LINCOLN embodied WHAT is best in the AMERICAN CHARACTER. The belief that HOMO SAPIENS had arrived at a time when TRUTH could be secured by UNDERSTANDING the GIFTS of REASON given to us.

FERGUSON'S LAND OF LINCOLN relates his travels to LINCOLN LAND with his children. MOTEL breakfast wherein thirty to forty men arrive all looking like ABRAHAM LINCOLN!!! Two incidents held my sense of meaning. One of a man from Thailand living in Chicago who every evening prepares a meal for ABRAHAM LINCOLN including desert. The other is a older man so weakly that the clerk calls for the manager to escort him to his room. As the man sits on the bed, he says to the manager, "I have come to pray at the grave of Abraham Lincoln. He then stands up and says "I was in my cell in AUSCHWITZ when Abraham Lincoln appeared" He said "ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL”. "I knew I would be saved".

LINCOLN was called HONEST ABE because ALL who crossed his path knew they could TRUST him! Born on a dirt floor in Kentucky in 1809, wearing clothes made from animal skins, his Mother and Father could not read or write. Mother dies drinking milk from a sick cow and the Father leaves him with his Sister Sarah for close to a year. Father goes back to Kentucky and takes a widow Sarah Johnson as his wife. She has three children. Imagine in Indiana seven people living and sleeping in one room. His sister, Sarah dies in child birth at a young age. YET his whole being is directed to understanding words in order to bring an understand to all with whom he comes into contact.

LINCOLN sat on his bed when he learned of his becoming President. He made out his list of his cabinet. He chose his three main rivals, Salmon Chase/Treasury/William Stewart, Secretary of State/Edward Bates, Attorney General. LINCOLN who served in the ILLINOIS State Legislature for six years/ MANY came to him to write bills for his handwriting along with his ability to advise the WHIG party how to defeat their opponents. EDWARD STANTON would become his Secretary of War. STANTON on seeing Lincoln on a patent case, told his assistant, "We don't need that APE" - IGNORED LINCOLN YET LINCOLN STAYED TO VIEW THE TRIAL AND WAS so impressed with STANTON'S presentation. STANTON had lost his first wife, age 29 along with Katherine his daughter, age 5. STANTON was sole support of his Mother and two sisters. Then his Brother, Edwin, having a fever stabbed himself in the next and bled to death. Thus Stanton now had His Brother's Wife and three children too care for (7).

He passed from this life at age 55 from asthma. LINCOLN given his unique form of EMPATHY would spend hours going through convictions of soldiers who were condemned to death. ANY sign of action that would allow him to extend clemency was followed. One soldier fell asleep on duty while filling in for another soldier. Clemency was given. LINCOLN appeared in Boston for what is known as the COOPER UNION SPEECH. The elite of Boston political, intellectual, etc were present. That speech introduced him to America. Shortly thereafter many said he should be the nominee of the PARTY. Shortly thereafter during another speech, he came up with a METAPHOR - a story that would confirm his ability to put the issue of SLAVERY in a better light. He said that we have a SNAKE in the BED of our children, if we try to remove it, it might bite our children. The NEW BEDS coming into existence we surely do not want these SNAKES placed in their BEDS!!!

IN 1791 the REVOLT in Saint Domingue (HAITI) called by FRANCE 'The Pearl of the Indies' was in fact a slaughter house of slaves!!! Women slaves worked in the SUGAR CANE FIELDS temperatures 90 - 100 degrees - leaving their babies in the field (returning to find them dead)!!! HARVEST SEASON was the worst. DOUBLE SHIFTS to get the CANE to the BOILING HOUSES. MANY fell asleep and fell into the VATS!!! SLAVE owners sent their offspring by slaves to FRANCE for an education. THOSE SONS AND DAUGHTERS returned to HAITI. THEY owned one third of the 10.000 PLANTATIONS. Not allowed to wear certain clothing, not allowed to own CARRIAGES of distinction. SEGREGATED in ordinary endeavours. THE FIELD SLAVES met secretly in a place called ALLIGATOR WOODS taking an oath to rise on that evening of August, 1791. CARNAGE between the various ETHNIC makeups is too complex to give at this time. A slave on the BREDA PLANTATION rose to protect his manager and then became the name KNOWN to millions of HAITIANS worldwide. TOUSSAINT L'OVERTURE!!!

ENGLAND AND FRANCE were at WAR in 1792 THUS ENGLISH TROOPS invaded HAITI to secure the 'PEARL OF THE ANTILLES' for themselves. WORD had spread that the ENGLISH would send their SHIRTS to be cleaned in the COLONY given the purity of the water. SOIL superior to other islands like JAMAICA producing COFFEE - CANE - LIQUOR selling worldwide at a good price. AFTER five years the BRITISH were defeated. AS the troops appeared in 1798 before PORT AU PRINCE, TOUSSAINT said: "(translated from the FRENCH - "we have come not for material things but to see that LIBERTY does not perish from the earth.” HE was abducted through duplicity and taken to ENGLAND to die ten months later in his cell from hunger and disease.

UNSPEAKABLE EVENTS took place between allied FACTIONS changing as loyalty changed amongst themselves. LeClerc sent a letter to NAPOLEON "Send $10.000.000 - we must slay every slave above the age of 12!!! THIS IS THE KEY reason WHY NAPOLEON asked Thomas Jefferson in 1803 for $15.000.000 for LA. PURCHASE!!! AMERICA has a debt to those HAITIANS who suffered in constant WAR defeating the BRITISH AND FRANCE becoming INDEPENDENT in 1803!!!

ONCE LINCOLN learned that Stephen Douglas had passed a bill abolishing the 1820 COMPROMISE opening the door to the use of the words POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY, LINCOLN knew that if this wording became POPULAR OPINION his previous statement that AMERICA would either become half slave or half free. THIS KANSAS NEBRASKA BILL opened the door to the EXTENSION of SLAVERY in AMERICA. The LA PURCHASE forbade slavery in its territories. IN 1855 LINCOLN came out of retirement to FIGHT this AFFRONT to the word EQUALITY that our FATHERS had placed in their document of independence. THE SEVEN DEBATES with DOUGLAS made LINCOLN more fully known NATIONALLY.

DOUGLAS made clear that he did not care if SLAVERY is voted up or down! LINCOLN saw that EQUALITY was at stake. LINCOLN GRASPED that the MORAL LAW of the word EQUALITY the FOUNDATION STONE of the DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE WAS UNDER ATTACK!!! I reflect on the carriage ride to the cemetery given that the Son of Edwin Stanton Secretary of War had died. We must thank Doris Kearns Goodwin for her quote form the diary of GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of the Navy (June, 1862) LINCOLN discussing slavery said: ''WITHOUT THIS LEVER (use NEGRO manpower) we will be subdued) THUS on July 22, 1862 he entered the CABINET and made clear HE would issue the EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION requesting their comments the following day. THUS the words of WILLIAM STEWART, Secretary of State, were given. HE said: "WE have suffered current defeats. Let us wait until the EAGLE of VICTORY takes flight and place the EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION UPON ITS NECK" LINCOLN said: THAT I DID NOT CONSIDER and place it in a drawer. AFTER ANTIEM, (September 22), considered a VICTORY, LINCOLN announced it would be signed on January 1, 1863. ONLY he knew that the use of NEGRO TROOPS would be included in his PROCLAMATION.

I shall discuss more about my LINCOLN in time for ALL THE MORE THAN 10,000 HIGH SCHOOLS should have the GETTYSBURG ADDRESS SCHOLARSHIP FUND.