To stand upon hallowed ground

[Padraig18]

Tony and I went to the Coles' County Fair today; the fair is Illinois' oldest county fair, celebrating it's 150th anniversary today. This year's theme was 'Celebrating Our Past', and today capped the week-long string of activities.

Today's special event was a re-enactment of the fourth of the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates, which took place upon the same fairgrounds on September 18th, 1858. The subject that day was the Kansas-Nebraska Act and its' awful sequelae. There was a crowd of about 2000 people today to watch the fine re-enactors debate, just as there was on that sweltering late-summer day so long ago; the fairgrounds are still surrounded by cornfields grown lush in the fertile prairie soil, and the air is still filled with the sounds of premium livestock.

It is easier when one lives here to close one's eyes and drift back to that place and time, because Mr. Lincoln is more than a name in a history book or a face on a coin here: here Abraham Lincoln is the lawyer who drew up the deed to great-great-grandfather's farm, here he is the poor-boy-made-good who payed off the mortgage on his parents' farm, allowing them to spend their last years in ease and comfort, here he is the highly-principled trial lawyer who argued the winning case for the owner of a runaway slave and then persuaded the owner to free him, paying the price of his manumission with his own funds, and he is the poor boy who sent the priest of St. Charles Church $500 every year for many years with instructions that he should procure 'a pair of sturdy shoes and a warm coat' for every poor child in his parish. To those of us who live here, this is who Abraham Lincoln is and was, in some ways less and in other, more significant ways more to us than he is to history and the world at large.

I came away today feeling as though I had stood upon hallowed ground, and with a better understanding of the flame of populism that is seldom long-submerged here, for I had stood where this tall farm boy stood so long ago and heard spoken the ringing words he spoke that day of freedom and of justice for all men.

:)

[Padraig18]

1. Kick

:)

[EstimatedProphet]

2. Well written Padraig

It must be nice to feel that kind of connection to history.

[Padraig18]

3. Thank you.

Aye, we feel a very real connection to Mr. Lincoln here.

:)