“Slavery is dead” declared
Andrew Johnson in a speech he delivered in Nashville, TN in 1864, “and you must
pardon me if I do not mourn over its dead body; you can bury it out of sight”
he announced, but “I desire that all men shall have a fair start and an equal
chance in the race of life, and let him succeed who has the most merit.”
Johnson then left us this
affirmation: “I am for emancipation, for two reasons: first, because it is
right in itself; and second, because in the emancipation of the slaves we break
down an odious and dangerous aristocracy. I think that we are freeing more
whites than blacks in Tennessee.”
It has now been 144 years
since Andrew Johnson spoke those words of wisdom to a nation in turmoil. We
still have difficulty as a nation in consistently practicing Johnson’s affirmation.
We can nevertheless affirm the principle Johnson left us when he added this
conclusion: “In the support and practice of
correct principles, we can never reach wrong results.”
Chips From the White House
Compiled by Jeremiah Chaplin.
(Boston: D. Lothrop
and Company, 1881) p. 286
We may often fall short of our objective, but when it comes to day to day living, be it our faith or our politics, we can
never go wrong practicing right principles … I am,
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