Political Quotes

“Mr. President, Boston is perhaps a surprising place to begin a tribute to Indiana's veterans on the occasion of Memorial Day, but there, on Augustus Saint-Gaudens' magnificent memorial to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, their names are etched. Maybe the coast of South Carolina is no less unexpected a place to continue that tribute, but there, on the shore, they fell, the men who helped save our Union, who forever ended its greatest scourge, who fought for the Declaration of Independence, though they had been denied the unalienable rights it promised. Seldom have American soldiers taken up arms and laid down their lives with such selflessness and yet so much at stake. Many Hoosiers were among their ranks. Their names should be known, their stories told. As Proverbs 10:7 says, ``the memory of the just is blessed.'' Abraham Lincoln described the Emancipation Proclamation as ``an act of Justice.'' One of the greatest instruments of that justice was embedded at the end of the document. It read ``that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States.'' ``Such persons'' were Black Americans. Lincoln's words spread far and fast and wide. In my capital city of Indianapolis, Pastor Willis Revels petitioned Governor Oliver Morton to raise a fighting force, and when the request was denied, rebels encouraged Hoosiers to join the first all-Black regiment forming near Boston.…”