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ABRAHAM LINCOLN: MALICE TOWARD NONE

Abraham Lincoln, America's most beloved president, was anything but beloved while he was in office. The South hated him. The anti-war activists hated him. Democrats hated him, calling him a widow-maker. The media ridiculed his eyes, looks, and body, calling him a freak of nature. Harpers magazine so much as to call him a host of names in print: filthy story teller, despot, liar, thief, braggart, buffoon, usurper, monster, ignoramus Abe, old scoundrel, perjurer, swindler, tyrant, field-butcher, land-pirate.

But Abraham Lincoln would not stoop down to the level of his critics. He won over a lot of his enemies and critics by holding fast to this famous principle encapsulated in his second inaugural address: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right."

"Were all role models, either positively or negatively, no matter what station in life we occupy. Its one of the things we attain simply by being human beings in a community of other human beings."

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