I was watching a TV show about Lincoln the other night. They were discussing some of the speeches of
his early involvement with the brand new Republican Party and his equally early
debates with Douglass. It was late and I
had taken some pills to help me go to sleep. They started acting and had me in a
relaxed and finally sleepy mood.
Suddenly
(although recited without heavy voice) a quote from Lincoln shook me wide-awake. The phrase went something like “In a true and
just Democracy the wishes of the majority are always subservient to the
principle of right and wrong"
I really did not sleep much that night thinking of my past
and of all the occasions when in the Present I sat in the majority and thought myself
to be on the right side of the Right/Wrong equation only to discover in the Future
that I had been on the wrong side! Is
our conscience that much affected by the direction of the wind of the Present?
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