Ford’s Theater

The Most Significant Dates In Presidential History Related To Four Great Presidents!

Ronald Leave a comment

Every year as we reach mid April, we are reminded of the most significant dates in Presidential history related to four great Presidents, all of whom represent the best of our history.

April 12 is the anniversary of the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, our greatest President of the 20th century, the promoter of the New Deal to react to the Great Depression, and also the leader through most of the fight against Fascism and Nazism in World War II.

It is also the anniversary of Harry Truman becoming President suddenly, and filling the shoes of FDR with courage and decisiveness, bringing about the end of World War II; confronting the Soviet Union in the Cold War; and promoting the expansion of the New Deal, the beginning of the end of racial segregation; and the recognition of Israel.

April 13 is the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson, who authored the Declaration of Independence; doubled our territory through the Louisiana Purchase agreement with France; kept us out of war with Great Britain with his understanding that we could not fight them with a chance to be victorious; and was a genius in so many ways, without a doubt the most brilliant person ever to occupy the Presidency.

April 14 marks the sad anniversary of Abraham Lincoln being shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater, and his death the next morning, April 15, but having brought about the victory of the Union over the Confederacy and the enunciation of the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation.

The ranking of these Presidents on the C-Span list of 2009 is Lincoln as number one, FDR as number three, Truman as number five, and Jefferson as number seven.

We are fortunate to have had such great leadership from these four Presidents, who had, overall, a greater effect on American history, than any other Presidents we have had!

The Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln 1865: Still Affecting America Today!

Ronald Leave a comment

On this day, at around the hour I am writing this, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, by actor John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, who wished to reverse the Union victory accomplished five days earlier by the surrender of Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

Lincoln looks better all of the time, and we are now commemorating the sequicentennial of the Civil War, which lasted officially from April 12, 1861 to April 9, 1865, and killed two percent of the population, approximately 620,000 men!

The sectionalism that helped to cause the Civil War still exists, and much of the South is celebrating the Civil War anniversary, rather than just commemorating it!

American history would have been quite different if Lincoln had lived, and it is still the greatest human tragedy of the nation’s history, as far as any individual’s role in history is concerned.

Much is published regularly about Lincoln, but the mountain of material never stops, and a lot of attention will be given to it over the next four years because of it being 150 years ago, a notable anniversary!

A movie well worth seeing, opening tomorrow, is THE CONSPIRATOR, which portrays the assassination of Lincoln, and the supposed complicity of Mary Surratt, who ran the rooming house where the Lincoln conspiracy was discussed by the group involved in the plot, including her son, John Surratt, who escaped punishment for his complicity in the event, but had his mother become the first woman executed in American history, due to a military tribunal illegally condemning four of the conspirators to death, rather than having trial by a civilian jury!

The movie informs us of the unconstitutional actions taken by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who was in such a hurry to eliminate the conspirators that he broke the Bill of Rights, a troubling followup to the tragedy of the Civil War!

It is a warning that even in crisis, we must not forget the Constitution and Bill of Rights, too often ignored in the name of national security!