Presidents Day 2011

George Washington(1732- 1796) (familiar picture on the right) as our first president of the United States. He was the Comander in chief of the Continental army in the American Revolution and was called the Father of our Country. The photo to the left is the inarguatiion of George Washington as the first President of tthe United States.

The Star Spangled Banner

Lyrics By Francis Scott Key 1814

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ...O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

The birthday of both Abraham Lincoln (on February 12) and of George Washington (February 22) were celebrated for many years as two our our greatest presidents. Washington as the first President who was so respected some wanted to make him king but instead of honor for himself, General George Washington lead the new nation toward democracy.

Abraham Lincoln is celebrated for saving the nation as "one nation under God" during the turmoil of Civil War. Linclon's Gettysburg Address is a long remembered masterpiece: It would be well for all of us to read it often.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "

President Abraham Lincoln was mistaken when he said, "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." In truth, the world did note and hopefully will always remember this speech , which was said to have first been written on the back of an envelope.