Mike Pence: “It is February 12, 2002, and on this calendar date 193 years ago today, just scarcely two lifetimes ago, came into the…”

“It is February 12, 2002, and on this calendar date 193 years ago today, just scarcely two lifetimes ago, came into the world the 16th President of the United States of America, the father of the Republican Party, the leader who ended slavery and at the same time saved the Union. I speak, of course, of President Abraham Lincoln, born humbly in Kentucky, raised proudly in Indiana, who then moved and pursued a public and adult career in Illinois. The Bible tells us, 'If you owe debts, pay debts. If honor, then honor. If respect, then respect.' I thought today, in the midst of all our debates about other pressing national issues, as now having the privilege of being able to call Abraham Lincoln, the Congressman Abraham Lincoln from 1848, a colleague, that it would be all together fitting to rise today and remember the occasion of his birth, and to do so, Mr. Speaker, with his own words. Abraham Lincoln spoke of many issues, but of course freedom and the abolition of the evil of human slavery were chief among them.”