To the editor:

President Lincoln faced a nation divided by 4 years of civil war were brother fought against brother and hate ran deep on both sides. Lincoln’s overwhelming task was to unite the nation after the death of 618,000. Many in the North wanted Robert E. Lee executed, but even his former enemy Union General Ulysses S. Grant did not listen to these voices of hate. He knew it would not help to heal the wounds of the war. Abraham Lincoln, who was deeply effected by the war, said in his Second Inaugural Address on March 4 1865: “With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind the wounds.”

President Obama, who likes to compare himself to Abraham Lincoln, promised to unite our nation during his run for president. Instead of taking the words of Lincoln to heart, he is dividing our nation by class, race and income. The achievers are made out to be the root of all evil while paying their taxes, but a great many no longer pay tax and believe they are entitled to do so. The overburdened tax payer, of whom is more and more expected because the governments demand for greater spending and entitlement programs grows, has to carry the burden.

Remember the prediction made in 1770 by Scottish lawyer, writer and professor Alexander Fraser Tytler who wrote on the subject why democracies fail “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess (abundant, money or gifts) out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.” Tytler’s words should be known to all of us because it is only in the interest of politicians to grow the entitlement segment of society and sew discourse between us. It gives them power and control over all of us. It will lead to the destruction of a great republic.

Remember also Abraham Lincoln’s words when he spoke on June 16. 1858 to delegates in the Springfield, Illinois, statehouse, ” A house divided against itself can not stand.

Horst Hanak

Laurinburg