Abraham Lincoln on radical generation

On December 1, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, just weeks before he was to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his Annual Message to Congress, saying:

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history… The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We – even we here – hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.