We’re Stuck Together: Make a Better Place for All of Us

Larry, Adult Leader
Unity Center
March 2012

A conversation between Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson

TJ- How did our experiment in government go?
AL- Well when you said all men are created equal and you and your buddies couldn’t deal with the slave trade guess who had to handle that?
TJ- Not you?
AL- Yep! Me and the rest of America. It split us apart for a time, just like it split your small group. It became a matter of life and death for an ideal . That “all men are created equal” idea you put in the Declaration of Independence, yea it lives and grows but a lot of people died to make it live.
TJ- I wonder how the idea is doing now? You are a pretty old guy even in history books by now I bet
AL- Yea, I am, we’re both old and can you believe…? Well you probably knew you’d be there for people to read about, after all you wrote the Declaration of Independence-but me- well you would never have envisioned me- but the idea of equality sure helped me. It made me possible
AL- Look at these “community” kids March 28, 2012. All of them are here in Washington today because of that idea “all people are created equal”.
TJ- It looks to me like that idea is still alive
AL- Yes, it’s alive because they are alive. They will have to carry the idea wont they Thomas?
TJ- Yea Abraham
AL You can see around Washington some real nice monuments to other folks who’ve carried the same dream.
TJ- Well there’s yours and mine and Martin Luther King Jr.
AL- Now that man is one man I’d like to meet
TJ- Me too! He sure got it right but I see it cost him Abraham
AL- Yea
TJ- Just like it cost you
AL- Well it’s an ideal that still costs people
TJ- Yea and that Robert Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. Looks like they knew what we were talking about
AL- Yea, sacrifice and “the last full measure of devotion”
TJ- Yea, I see over on your monument that you said that at the cemetery at Gettysburg. “These honored dead” who gave the “last full measure” of their devotion in offering up their lives in that battle
AL- Yes but look at how all our lives are still alive and our words are still read and our thoughts rethought.
TJ- and these “community” kids from Cleveland Tennessee, it’s truly their idea to carry now isn’t it?
AL- Yes
TJ- and God help them