In 1838, Lincoln spoke at a Lyceum to a group of young men in Springfield, Illinois, on the status of America's unique experiment as a democratic republic. These young American men called their meeting place a Lyceum out of respect for the Athenian men who, more than 2,000 years before them, first debated the complexities of freedom in the original Lyceum, an edifice in ancient Athens for philosophical discussion.

The specific subject for the evening was: The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions.

That "perpetuation" subject was urgently relevant to these young men who believed (22 years before the Civil War) that American Political Institutions were in imminent jeopardy.  The jeopardy was the increasing violence and disregard of law, both above and below the Mason-Dixon Line that separated the North and South geographically, politically, and culturally.

In his speech, Lincoln (then 29-years-old) speedily summarized the relevant history of our experiment in three paragraphs.  The first paragraph extolled the political institutions bequeathed to us by our "hardy, brave, and patriotic" Founders.  Lincoln stated that these "Founder" institutions, though imperfect, conferred on us civil and religious freedoms unknown to any past peoples.   He next extolled the providential splendors of the immense continent that this experiment was blessed with - its lakes, rivers, plains, climates, forests, fertility, and abundant mineral wealth.  Added to these natural gifts were the protection from foreign invasion by the vast Atlantic and Pacific oceans; ready access to world commerce; and next-door neighbors north and south, either friendly to America or too impotent to interfere with its growth and strength.  In the third paragraph, he summarized the gratitude we owed to our Founders; our duties we owed to one another; and our duties we owed to posterity.

These introductory paragraphs were prefatory to the key contention of his speech: namely, that no foreign army could ever overthrow the American experiment in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  The experiment could only be overthrown by what he called an act of national suicide - orchestrated by the rising mobocratic violence and disregard of the law, morals, and faith of our Founding Fathers or by the appearance of a brilliant American demagogue like Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon.

We, like Lincoln and his Springfield Lyceum brothers, are living in an America sick with personal, public, and rabid political violence together with apathy, self-absorption, and cowardice.

A draft-dodging, jury-convicted felonious Trump, surrounded by fake Christians, self-serving "patriots", robotic stooges and sycophants, is no Caesar or Napolean.  Let us, then, stand up and celebrate our 4th of July like the first American citizens did against the monarchy and tyranny of England on July 4,1776 and against the slave owners of the South at Gettysburg.  Let us stand up against the billionaire oligarchs in both of our self-interested parties and do so in the hope that, in doing so, we will make possible an authentic 4th of July for our children and grandchildren.

Jack Hyland, Vietnam combat veteran