...for good or ill, have a hand in choosing their destinies. "Fellow-citizens," he warned, "we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration,...The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation."38 If one detects here a conflict in Lincoln's...

...Lincoln tried to summarize the progress of the war and its shifting goals. "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration...The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the last generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not...

...I beg to state that we cannot hope to escape History, who will be after us with a very sharp stick. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. My own hopes of being spared on the latter count are consequently dashed, in which I share a disappointment...

...but our only real option is to act. Over a century ago in another conflict Lincoln said, "We cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration...The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation." Those same words apply to us here today. A century...

...Lincoln's message to the nation in 1862, the first year of another American war: Fellow Citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration...The fiery trial through which we pass will light us .... in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. Eighty years after Lincoln delivered that message,...

...gave Lincoln's mind still more ease in this respect. "Fellow-citizens," he said in 1862, "we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration,...The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation."40 To Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton he read...

...think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. We cannot escape history: We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. We — even we here — hold the power and bear the responsibility in giving freedom to the slaves,...

...past, present, and future in a passage of unsurpassed eloquence and power: Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.... The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.......

...Abraham Lincoln advised a beleaguered North in December 1862, "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us." If we do not learn from history, we are fated to learn the lessons again. What then is this beyond...

...connection with respect to Lincoln's broader vision. "We cannot escape history," the president remarks. "We of this Congress and this Administration will...The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation" (CW 1.810). That the next volume of The Civil...