"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, and to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." -Abraham Lincoln, March 1865

In the final days of the Civil War, and a month before his murder, Lincoln gave his Second Inaugural Address, using words of conciliation, hope, and a promise of a happier future for a divided nation. It was a dream and a future shattered by a bullet in Ford's Theater on April 14th. John W. Boothe, a terrorist before we knew the full meaning of the word, killed Lincoln and with his death all hopes of a peaceful reconciliation in the Southern States.

A hundred and fifty years hence, rebellious flags fly and hateful lips spew vulgar slurs from ugly and dark souls. You have to wonder what a different country we would now live in had Lincoln lived. When will again see his kind in the halls of national leadership?