A Voice For the Silenced: My Immediate Reaction to the US Presidential Election Result

Shock and silence are a married couple not on speaking terms. Therefore, at pivotal historic moments of great personal consternation when a man’s own voice betrays him, he should allow the past to speak for the present in hopes that the future can reveal itself. Paying heed to the wisdom of the ages, I shall now give the podium to a man infinitely more sagacious than myself. Without further ado, let us hear his prescient words of wisdom:

“On the perpetuation of our political institutions: …

How, then, shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” Lyceum Address, Springfield, Illinois, USA, January 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln.