Presidential Comments
There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country. Without such knowledge, he stands uncertain and defenseless before the world, knowing neither where he has come from nor where he is going. With such knowledge, he is no longer alone but draws a strength far greater than his own from the cumulative experience of the past and accumulative vision of the future. Excerpt from John Kennedy's (1962) essay "On History"
I cannot but remember the place that New Jersey holds in our early history. In the early Revolutionary struggle, few of the States among the old Thirteen had more of the battlefields of the country within their limits than old New Jersey.… Away back in my childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read, I got hold of a small book…Weem’s "Life of Washington". I remember all the accounts there given on the battle fields and struggles for the liberties of the country, and none fixed themselves upon my imagination so deeply as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. The crossing of the river, the contest with the Hessians, the great hardhips endured at that time, all fixed themselves on my memory more than any single revolutionary event; and you all know, for you all have been boys, how these early impressions last longer than any others. I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, that there must have been something more than common that those men struggled for; that something even more than National Independence; that something that held out a great promise to all people of the world to all time to come.... Excerpt from Abraham Lincoln's speech to the NJ State Senate, February 21, 1861
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