With firmness in the right;

              With Firmness in the Right
Frederick L. Neumann
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
One of the earliest memories I have is, as a child, climbing a set of stone
steps in the fading twilight of an early spring evening toward a marble build-ing
filled with light. As my father assisted me up the last step I remember
being startled by an enormous statue of a bearded man sitting in a large chair
whose kindly, though wrinkled, face seemed to be looking down just at me.
I do not recall much that happened subsequently except that I could not get
that initial view of the statue out of my mind. I do remember that there was
some writing on the walls that my father and brothers said something about,
but I could not take my eyes off of that statute. I have returned to the Lincoln
Memorial several times since then and have been similarly affected. Learn-ing
his story and reflecting on the words on the walls that surround his
statue have only added to my original sense of awe.
I am not a native of Illinois, but one does not live there for very long with-out
noticing the shadow that the Great Emancipator still casts over the Prairie
State. Lincoln remains somewhat of a folk hero as well as a revered resident.
The nose on his weather-stained bust in Oak Ridge Cemetery is as bright as
gold, rubbed shiny by countless visitors who use it as a sign of friendly re-spect
toward this humble man of the people.
One of the attributes of Lincoln that has attracted me to him is his writ-ing.
We have probably never had another president who could write as mov-ingly
as he. In this day of ghost writers, it is difficult to know who really
originated a presidential turn of phrase that may catch our fancy.
Hark back then to the days when presidents wrote their own material.
Certainly there was Jefferson, but his prose, while brilliant, was not of the
earthy nature or straightforward metaphor of Lincoln. Teddy Roosevelt was
another of our literary presidents, but, again, his prose did not reach to the
depths of Lincoln's. Among American writers of any connection, it is hard to
match the Old Testament grandeur of Lincoln's style or the rich resonance
of his expression.
Despite all the attention given to his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln had many
other memorable pieces of prose. Today, I would like to focus on his second
inaugural speech. The speech was delivered near the end of the Civil War,
when reconstruction loomed as the new challenge. It was not long before the
assassination that would keep him from carrying it out.
The particular words I want to recall deal with what Lincoln thought
should be the nation's perspective toward that future. In particular, I have
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