Yours truly, A. Lincoln

As I have had no luck at all in my frequent correspondences with my congressman and senators, I have finally come to the sad conclusion that I am simply not important enough, and my opinion is of no consequence.

In light of my apparent uselessness, I approached my late friend Abraham Lincoln and have asked him if he might use his considerable respect, leverage and mastery of the English language to write a letter to Congress on my behalf.

Due to his... inability to use a keyboard, and slight confusion as to the workings of the internets, I have offered to take this letter down as dictation, and he has allowed me the option of slipping in a few words of my own: the agreement being that I attribute his own words via use of

blockquotes.

Sincerely, feduphoosier

_____________________________________________



Gentlemen and Ladies of the Congress:

It is with great regret that dictate this letter to you, in this time of national upheaval and constitutional crisis. I cannot watch your current actions without extending my deepest concern and indeed, a dire warning.

You must protect the Constitution; this is not optional. You must protect the rule of law; you have sworn to do so with your oaths of office, before the citizens and before God.

Your unconscionable sacking of the Constitution, and the unalienable rights of each American citizen to protect his and her own privacy, papers and possessions from unreasonable searches: these protections are guaranteed by the fourth amendment of the Constitution, which you have sworn to uphold. Your rushed passage of the recent FISA bill was a grievous blow to the rule of law and justice in this land.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

What I shall say upon this head, I design exclusively for the law-loving and law-abiding part of the House. To those who claim omnipotence for the Legislature, and who in the plenitude of their assumed powers, are disposed to disregard the Constitution, law, good faith, moral right, and every thing else, I have not a word to say.

I frequently make mistakes myself, in the many things I am compelled to do hastily.

Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

I have borne a laborious, and, in some respects to myself, a painful part in the contest [the war between the States.] Through all, I have neither assailed, nor wrestled with any part of the Constitution.

I freely acknowledge myself the servant of the people, according to the bond of service -- the United States Constitution; and that, as such, I am responsible to them.

I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act.

It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power.

It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.

Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army.

These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle.

Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.

When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgement of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice. This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth, and an insult to our intelligence, to deny.

I know the American People are much attached to their Government;---I know they would suffer much for its sake;---I know they would endure evils long and patiently, before they would ever think of exchanging it for another. Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property, are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the Government is the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come.

Has it [popular sovereignty] not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death?

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

Let us then turn this government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it.

Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.

As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;---let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty.

Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap---let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges;---let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;---let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.

And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.

The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not.

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Yours truly,