On a night where it seems that the House is going to pass into Republican control and we can look forward to two years of Speaker Tan-in-a-Can, some words from a Republican of a decidedly different stripe. Simple words that remind us both to be humble at the heights of our greatest victories, and hopeful in the depths of crushing despair:
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!
These words were spoken by none other than Abraham Lincoln as he addressed the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society in Milwaukee on September 30, 1859, as tensions between the North and South threatened to boil over into civil war.
Those days were far worse than the days we see ahead of us. The nation survived and came to grow to prominence following those dark times.
This, too, shall pass.