As we continue through A Month of Thanksgiving, I find my mind and heart wandering around the realm of Disney and positive stuff each day. Today, I find myself back in the Opera House at Disneyland. There, Abe Lincoln is currently standing in for Walt Disney as Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln is presented in recent days. Any day Walt Disney – A Magical Life could return and take over again. Then, it could be quite some time before President Lincoln returns to the stage at the Opera House to share performing duties with Walt Disney. However, today Abraham Lincoln is making appearances, and this is something I am very thankful for.
While I’m a big Disney fan, I’m also a fan of history. In particular, I like presidential history when talking about the United States of America. President Lincoln is one of my favorite presidents. For years, I had a portrait of President Lincoln in my various offices. I think of his core values of freedom, justice, reason, mercy, and honor. While he was a flawed human being, his legacy stands for things that I think are honorable and worth aspiring to as a country.
Currently, the speech that Abraham Lincoln gives in the Opera House is a combination of speeches he gave throughout his life. Here is what Mr. Lincoln says in Great Moments:
President Abraham Lincoln Speech in Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln
The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.
What constitutes the bulwark of our…liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts,…These are not our reliance against…tyranny…Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant, to step the ocean, and crush us at a blow?
Never!
All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined,…could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all times, or die by suicide.
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by the menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves.
Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
With all the changes that have come to the Disney Parks in recent years, I’m very thankful that we can still experience Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. President Lincoln was a hero of Walt Disney’s and is a hero of mine. I’m glad that his memory and ideals continue to live on in the Opera House at Disneyland. I’m glad that even though Walt Disney – A Magical Life is shown at the Opera House, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln will also continue to live on.
