The Right to Life and the Restoration Of the American Republic

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States inaugurated not only the American experiment, but also one of the great economic booms in history. Americans moved West and South, labored North and East to till the soil, build roads, finance banks, invest in new technologies, discover new methods of farming, mining, and manufacture. “We made the experiment,” Lincoln wrote during the prosperity of 1854. In America “we proposed to give all a chance.” Now “the fruit is before us. Look at it—think of it. Look at it in its aggregate grandeur, of extent of country and numbers of population—of ship and steamboat and rail.”

In 1854, almost four score years had gone by since the Founding, and nearly as many years divided the abject poverty of Thomas Lincoln from the prosperity of his son Abraham, the “lone Whig star” of Illinois. In twenty years of hard work before 1854, Lincoln had been preoccupied with personal advance in law and politics, during which time he had focused on the great issues of economic nationalism: the tariff, the National Bank, and internal improvements. It is true that he was only one among thousands of apostles of national development and economic growth; but he was utterly devoted to their cause.

EL

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E. Lehrman

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Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States inaugurated not only the American experiment, but also one of the great economic booms in history. Americans moved West and South, labored North and East to till the soil, build roads, finance banks, invest in new technologies, discover new methods of farming, mining, and manufacture. “We made the experiment,” Lincoln wrote during the prosperity of 1854. In America “we proposed to give all a chance.” Now “the fruit is before us. Look at it—think of it. Look at it in its aggregate grandeur, of extent of country and numbers of population—of ship and steamboat and rail.”

In 1854, almost four score years had gone by since the Founding, and nearly as many years divided the abject poverty of Thomas Lincoln from the prosperity of his son Abraham, the “lone Whig star” of Illinois. In twenty years of hard work before 1854, Lincoln had been preoccupied with personal advance in law and politics, during which time he had focused on the great issues of economic nationalism: the tariff, the National Bank, and internal improvements. It is true that he was only one among thousands of apostles of national development and economic growth; but he was utterly devoted to their cause.