California Legislature—2013–14 Regular Session

Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 8

Introduced by Assembly Member Chávez

January 23, 2013

Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 8—Relative to Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

ACR 8, as introduced, Chávez. Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

This measure would declare that President Abraham Lincoln be honored on February 12, 2013, the anniversary of his birthday.

Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United
States, and one of our nation’s most respected and admired
Americans, rose from humble beginnings to become President of
the United States and courageously led his country during its
darkest time, the Civil War; and

WHEREAS, Mr. Lincoln brought a profound honesty and
integrity to the Office of the President, and will always be
remembered as “Honest Abe.“ Most of all, he will forever be
associated with saving the Union and with the abolition of slavery;
and

WHEREAS, Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809,
in Kentucky, and spent the first seven years of his life there; and

WHEREAS, In his entire life, President Lincoln was only able
to attend school for a total of one year. This lack of formal
education only made him hungrier for more knowledge, and he
mastered the Bible, the works of William Shakespeare, and the
law; and

WHEREAS, In 1846, he was elected to the United States
Congress as the only member of the Whig Party in the Illinois
congressional delegation, where he forthrightly articulated his
views against the Mexican War and his vehement opposition to
the extension of slavery, choosing not to run for reelection in 1848;
and

WHEREAS, Soon after President Lincoln joined the Republican
Party, a new political party opposed to the extension of slavery,
in 1858 the Republicans nominated him for the United States
Senate. In his nomination acceptance speech, Lincoln stated: “A
house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government
cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect
the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall --
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one
thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest
the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall
rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or
its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all
the States, old as well as new -- North as well as South.” He lost
in a close election to Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party
candidate; and

WHEREAS, Just two years later, having won the Republican
party nomination for President of the United States, Mr. Lincoln
won election by a small margin, defeating, among other candidates,
Senator Steven Douglas; and

WHEREAS, Shortly after assuming office, the Civil War began.
As the war continued, Lincoln expanded the objectives of the war
beyond saving and restoring the Union, but also to freeing the
slaves and abolishing the institution of slavery; and

WHEREAS, On September 22, 1862, Lincoln took the first
major step toward the total abolition of slavery in the United States
by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on
January 1, 1863; and

WHEREAS, President Lincoln enunciated the nation’s loftiest
ideals during its darkest moment following the bloodiest battle of
the Civil War. His Gettysburg Address, regarded as one of the
finest speeches in the English language, was delivered by him at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863, while dedicating
a cemetery for those killed in the Battle of Gettysburg, which took
place from July 1 to July 3, 1863, between the Army of the
Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia; and

WHEREAS, In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln reaffirmed the
nation’s foremost founding principles, declaring the United States
to be a nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal,” while assuring a nation
still consumed by war that “this nation, under God, shall have a
new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the
people for the people, shall not perish from the earth”; and

WHEREAS, To ensure that the provisions of the Emancipation
Proclamation could not be construed as a mere wartime measure,
President Lincoln insisted that enactment of a constitutional
amendment abolishing slavery be included in the 1864 Republican
Party platform; and

WHEREAS, Upon reelection to a second term as President in
1864, Abraham Lincoln actively supported the passage in Congress
of what became the 13th Amendment to the United States
Constitution, the copy of the joint resolution referring the 13th
Amendment to the states for ratification, which to this day is
housed in the National Archives, actually bears Abraham Lincoln’s
signature, even though the President has no formal constitutional
role in the amendment process, and joint resolutions do not go to
the White House for either signature or approval; and

WHEREAS, Lincoln ultimately reunified the nation and brought
about a successful conclusion to our nation’s bloodiest war, as the
Civil War ended on April 9, 1865, with the surrender of General
Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to the Union General,
Ulysses S. Grant, at Appomattox Court House; and

WHEREAS, Only five days later, on April 14, 1865, Abraham
Lincoln was shot while viewing a performance of “My American
Cousin” at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., and died the next
day, not living to see his dreams of the formal abolition of slavery
and the restoration of the Union realized; and

WHEREAS, Abraham Lincoln’s accomplishments and legacy
as the “Great Emancipator” and “Preserver of Our Union” are
perhaps unsurpassed in the history of our nation, and in this
sesquicentennial year of the enactment of the Emancipation
Proclamation, the third year of the Civil War, and the Gettysburg
Address, it is particularly appropriate to recognize Abraham
Lincoln, a portrait of whom hangs in a place of honor in the
California State Assembly Chambers; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate
thereof concurring, That the Legislature hereby declares that
President Abraham Lincoln be honored on February 12, 2013, the
anniversary of his birthday, not only in recognition of his numerous
accomplishments and contributions to our nation, but also as the
virtual symbol of the American dream, whereby an ordinary person
from the most humble beginnings can reach the pinnacle of
American society to be elected President, and to serve his country
with honor and courage; and be it further

Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies
of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.