The Civil War was the cultural midpoint in our history. Everything about slavery since the founding foreshadowed it. Everything subsequently seems to refer back to the unfulfilled promises of reconstruction. In early 1861 Lincoln delivered his first inaugural with the country facing civil war. In it, he appealed to "the better angels of our nature" to pull the nation back from the brink of disaster. We know that appeal went unanswered. Today we need to listen to those better angels lest we reenact the greatset tragedies of our past.

David Parrella

Buckland