re: Statues in NOLA are coming down.

Lincoln delivered to the Congress on 12/1/62 a Special Address. We would now call this the State of the Union Address. The address covered revenues, industrial output, relations with other nations. You can find the whole thing online. it is many pages long.

But his concluding remarks, delivered 30 days before the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, are, I think, the most brilliant thing he wrote.

"Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."

Pretty awesome. Anything at cross purposes to these sentiments, like statues of anyone who opposed the lawful government, might look good crushed up to make a break water or levee.