separately and said they practiced their question by saying well, i don't believe in global warming but. and i thought, word also a bad start here if that's the kind of questions i'm going to get and then i don't believe in global warming. in fact in this audience before i sat down, a couple of people said to me, what is this business about the data from east anglia that has been fudged? i'm sure you all heard about that and with more time than i have to deliver it.

but what happened basically somebody hacked into the database and found that some of the scientists had somehow fudged some of their data that indicated that global warming is a serious problem. and because of this conflict, people said well, they needed up there for global warming is not a serious problem. lemmie stand here and tell you that global warming is indeed a very, very serious problem. it's a serious problem for polar bears and it's a serious problem for human beings. for polar bears, this is one alternative for polar bears. this is another alternative, not a good one for polar bears because they don't do well as i've said in the grass. they don't have anything to eat. and it's not going to be people. this was three years ago. "time" magazine came out with this cover image. and as you can see, they chose for their image the polar bear. andis said then, be worried, be

very worried. and then let me tell you, do you worry, be very worried. it is a very serious problem and it is very, very real. and i'm using polar bears to exemplify that problem. but it is not only a problem for polar bears. this is the polar ice cap, the redline was the polar ice cap in 1979. this was 2006. when the polar ice cap, to this extent. it is getting smaller. now, what does that mean? it means that when there is no ice, and there's a lot of no ice in this picture. but when there is no ice, there is nothing to reflect the sunlight back into the air. so it is absorbed into the water. if it is absorbed into the water, the water gets warmer. as the water gets warmer, the ice melts. if the ice melts, there's lots

to blog the sun and so more water gets heated up. so it's a cycle that is not, at the moment i'm a not stoppable. what happens to the bears is unfortunately sad, but obvious. as the ice disappears, the food for the bears disappears. as the food disappears, the bears themselves disappear. and this is the arctic with no ice on it, except on the land. in other words, this image you will see it in a minute, when the bears are on the way. when i get the bears out of the way, there will be the arctic ocean with no ice cap on it. and just two weeks ago, three weeks ago i'm sorry. three weeks ago i was at a meeting and alaska were a polar bear biologist ran a very fancy model of the polar ice cap disappearing, and animated model. and he said, if you want to look it up, his name is eric uighur

and he said that within 50 years, the polar ice cap will be gone. fifty years. there are people in this room who will be living 50 years from now. what does that mean for people? it means that we will be losing an entire ecosystem. not just losing polar bears and whales, but losing an entire ecosystem. it's as if he went to sleep tonight and when he woke up the news if you could fit in in in the time you work stories. the news would say, australia i on. this is an ecosystem that affects the entire planet and affects the weather and the entire planet -- on the entire planet. so when this goes, not even a question but when it goes, things will change. it will not change for the better, they will change for the worse. and so what does that mean for human beings? and means we may not be able to

stop this. we may go to copenhagen and we may say, let's vote for this or let's vote to vote for this at some other time. let's cap emissions. let's see if we can slow this down. that the chances are we won't. the chances are we won't -- there won't be coming out of copenhagen a massive intention to stop global warming. meanwhile, talking about it but it's not going to happen easily or quickly. so while we are looking eyecare is not necessarily the elimination of human race. but we're still looking at the elimination of the polar bear. this is the cover of newsweek. the polar god itself with a lot of effort and with a lot of congregationalists. got himself a twist in agony endangered species, which means you cannot shoot them in the united states. people can shoot them in canada

and in russia and england, but you can shoot them in america. you can't bring the carcass of the polar bear you shot them roust into the united states. i met someone in the united states was on this this very trip that i'm about to tell you about. we were on the ship in the background called cappy time and those of you who side with an russian icebreaker strand in the antarctic a couple of weeks ago was the sister ship of this one. and it looks very much like this. it looks like somebody said that a block of flats on a barge. and we the cabin upon the upper deck and had a huge bridge from which we could see everything. the point of this trip, was one of the leaders of the trip. we were going to the north pole.

when you travel and as part of the world nbc bears off in the distance, as i said it's usually over there you see that white and moving. that's the bear. while this is somewhat closer. we had a bear that came this close to the ship and it was right alongside the ship. this will give you an idea, shooting rolls of film. remember what rolls of film or? wish i'd rolls of film of this bear this bear. and i shot this photograph of the air to this moment i have no idea how i got this shot. i was looking straight down at a bear from a height of at least 25 feet. this was a big ship. but anyways, i got this magical photograph in the bear turned around and started walking away. the same bear, by the way. for those of you would like to know what the north pole looks like. this is what it looks like. there is no pole. we brought one and everybody stood up what they pole bethesda

north pole. what is important about this image is i am standing there like a buffoon, but look at what i'm standing on. this is the north pole. september 24, 1994, and that the north pole into solid ice. well, not solid ice, but about 8 feet thick. but the russian seamen from the ship stopped a hole in the ice. some foolish people of which i was one stripped-down to the skivvies and jumped into the water at the north pole. they had tied around our waists individually in case we decided to go for a little swim, they could post them quickly. so we went for a swim at the north pole, but we went under was 1994. in 2000, this is the same red icebreaker that you saw before, leading the nuclear icebreaker.

that's the north pole in 2000. the north pole in 2000 was water. now of course the north pole was always under water. there's no land there. so there is a point on the globe worth about 13,000 feet deep. but the north old, in this case, no vice. same time of year, no wife. and this was one of the first times that anybody had realized that we were losing the immediate north polar ice cap. what does this mean to bears? well, it means that there's no wife and the bears have to keep swimming to look for ice. they can't catch them in the water. they don't swim fast enough and they're not agile enough in the water to catch a swimming feel, so they have to catch them on the ice. and if the ice is disappearing, what they do as they go for a swim hoping to find some ice that has fields on it. this is not a photograph i tell you right now. this is not a photograph of a

polar bear setting out to its doom. it's a photograph i took from the deck of a ship of a bear that was swimming into another ice flow. i'm using it as an indication that they were swimming and swimming. and in this photograph that purports to show bears stranded on an ice and doomed because of it. but they're not really. it was just a formation of ice that they climbed on. but the idea of their constant swim in hunter and swimming was al gore's inconsistent truth. the book has photographs of real bears but the movie had an animation of bears swimming to their doom. in other words, if there is no ice to keep swimming until they drown. whether they can swim for 60 miles or 100 miles, they can spend forever. and so they swim until they drowned, presumably. this is the photograph that i

wanted and did as they put on the cover of the book. i didn't take it and i found it in alaska stock photo organization. but it seemed to me to be indicative of the fate of the polar bear. this is obviously taken from some sort of a vessel. the bear is swimming. the bear looks somewhat disturbed at being chased by a vote of some sort. and the bear is underwater. so from this photograph, i essentially designed to jacket, this is not the jacket of the book. this is my design, but you can see that i wanted to call it the book, the polar bear and the global warming that my editors always wiser than i about things like this, decided that this probably -- this would probably scare people off. it would sound too pedantic. he was down to putney to think

they were going to read about the disappearing ice cap. so while the book doesn't have very many it talks about the disappearing ice pack. and in recent years, the book was finished about a year ago and it takes that long to put something like this together. but in recent years, nothing has changed all that much. nothing has gotten better for the bear or for the planet. there was much as it happens, not because i intended it this way, but it happens to be particularly timely subject. and i'm really happy probably isn't the right word. i'm relieved to know that the book came out when it was necessary because it has a lot in it about what's happening to the bears as well as the photographs of stars of vanity fair and whatnot.

but it is the story of the bare as representative of what's happening in the world today and also so we can learn about the bear it self and understand by focusing on an animal that we know instead of some large image of i don't know anything above the polarized cap and decide what does that have to meet? well, it has a lot to do with you. but the bear itself is the example. i found this in a most surprising place. i picked up a kurt vonnegut book about a year ago and i found this quote from kurt vonnegut. i'll read it to you that i know you can read it. even as i speak to him in the very last polar bear may be dying of hunger on account of climate change, on account of life. and i will sure miss the polar bears. they are babies are so warm and cuddly and trusting, just like

ours. thank you. [applause] [inaudible] >> there's going to be a microphone passed to the questionnaire because we want to be able to hear you on booktv. >> richard, is the decline of the ice cover and antarctica are matching the arctic or are they a different rates? >> i'll have to repeat the question. the rate is approximately the same, but the terrain -- not to rain, but it is different because antarctica the continent has an ice sheet that covers the

entire continent virtually, whereas the arctic is the notion surrounded by land. there are glaciers in the arctic, glaciers in england, glaciers and iceland. there are glaciers in canada, glaciers in alaska. these glaciers are melting. the glaciers in the antarctic are also melting. most places are suffering great ice glasses as we speak. and ice loss is that are not going to be repair ball. >> hi richard. it said that when it is very hot out you should wear white clothes and when it's very cold you should wear black because the weight -- the black absorbs the sun. so why is the polar bear white when black would-be war america by

>> well, there, let me recommend the berbers of this arid desert do you and recommended aware of all things black. it absorbs heat, but it does not transmit the heat. polar bears have a white coat, not necessarily to keep them any warmer than the brown bears coach, but they have a white coat and again, this gives a certain determinism to evolution, which doesn't really because they didn't develop a white coat so they could sneak up on sales. but it helps. it helps a lot if you are white animal in a white environment. it doesn't let you stand out so much from your prey. so it isn't so much to keep them warm or cold. it's to allow them to blend into the environment. [inaudible] >> how much time do we have for

the ice? >> that's an interesting question. how much longer do the polar bears actually have? the ice is scheduled and this is a variable. but they're looking at a century of the polar ice cap under the present conditions. in a century, the polar ice cap will be gone. will that mean that all the polar bears are gone? probably not. what will happen is some of the polar bears will conceivably adapt to a different region to live in. they will not turn back into brown bears. evolution does not work backwards. you cannot reacquire traits that you've lost. you be in a polar bear in this case or any other animal. it doesn't happen that way. you can't turn polar bears back into brown bears. they might exist in a different fashion. they will not be the polar bears that we know.

and this of course is not an unusual event in evolutionary history. a lot of things disappear and become modified or become modified and then disappear. and other creatures replace them. we will lose polar bears as we know them. we cannot tell whether they will adapt and become something else. animals that don't adapt to a changing and this is one of the determinants. animals that do not adapt to a changing environment become extinct. and they've been doing that for millions of years you it's not a surprise. so if the polar bears failed to adapt in the environment is certainly changing the build is the polar bears. and as they say, a century seems to be the outside limit of the polarized cap at the moment. >> do you know how much ice there is left? the

>> in terms of percentage per cubic footage? >> percentage. >> it changes from year to year because of what happens with the polar ice is it melts and then it freezes again. there is something on the order of 60% of the polar ice cap last. and it isn't getting 2007 was the worst year in history for the polar ice cap. 2008 with a little better. you can't use that to say ha ha global warming isn't really happening because there was more in 2009. it was also a really bad year. so i think were down to somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% and declining. >> besides, you know, contacting our politicians and donating money, what advice can you give to the people who will at this time do something here and out by ex-

>> he only advice i can give you is that like to be able to tell you to spend money to someone and fund national resources councils and other groups that all these people are fighting for the preservation of the animals and habitats of all kinds. the best advice i can give you is to accept the concept that they change. that we will lose ice caps and coral reefs. we're losing them now. the fact is that a lot of these arrows, certainly polar ice caps don't have a lot of people. the polar ice caps and the rainforest don't have a lot of people in them. but the others have indigenous people that live there. they are in trouble as well. the people who depend on the rainforest or depend on the ice for their food are also in

trouble. so the advice and this is an very heartening and i recognize that. the advice is to understand that exchange. things will always change. we are in an enormous period of flux right now and to accept the concept of evolutionary modification is the best advice i can give you. we cannot hold everything in the place we would like to keep it. it just never was possible and never will be possible. there are some animals that are threatened and endangered and people work around the clock trying to save things like california condor eggs and they did in fact say that i send which was down. there were 100 bison left in 1904 and now you hear about people raising them for beef and shooting them and doing whatever they're doing. but they were rescued. now things have certainly changed for the bison. they used to be millions of them circling the great plains.

then they were down to 100 now they're our reserves. so they've changed. what will happen is the polar bear were change. all these creatures will change. the advice i give you is to understand a concept that's changing. we've lost things in our lifetime. we will lose more and i'm sorry that that is the message here, but it is heartening only in that you begin to understand the complexity of the world you live in. it's not just us on the subways here. it's a lot more than that. everything that has been turns out to be a very, very useful way to the gap life. [inaudible] >> how many polar bears are left? >> about 22,000. >> i hate to ask you but the

person next to me would not does for me. why churchville and what do they eat their? >> you don't eat anything there. the polar bears, i was going to make a silly remark and i won't. churchill because it is a good place to wait if you're a polar bear. it's a good place to wait for the ice to freeze. they eat nothing and sometimes he the garbage but they don't eat the people and churchill. but it's a convenient place for the bears that hunt on hudson bay. hudson bay is a very, very large occasionally frozen area and the bears have been there from the time or however long they've been around and they find it a nice place to wait. it's unfortunately or fortunately a nice place for people to look at polar bears. but there's no explanation for why they are and why not toronto or why not -- this is just where

the bears ended up. they like it there. >> last question. >> richard, a long time ago people discovered and people have been exploring there and somehow we all kind of decided that nobody would own up to it. you mentioned in your book that the same sort of thing happened on planting an american flag and the moon didn't give the united states ownership of the moon. but is strategically different about the arctic polar regions that you've got russia planting a flag on the bottom of the sea and claiming. canada may be looking forward to having an open northwest passage that makes the panama can out redundant. is there something i put this under sort of greater glass of the cooperation amongst nations? >> in the arctic? >> guess. >> i guess is just simple, simple chauvinism. everybody wants their piece of

the pie. and it turns out to not be unlike a pie the way it is actually divided. if you have a seacoast on the arctic ocean, you have a claim under the law of the cu have a claim to certain treasures. at that notion they belong to you. and what the russians did was they put a flag at the north pole claiming that the ridge ran up to the north pole and therefore russia win up to the north pole. and therefore all that underwater real estate blonde to them. that's been contested and the arguments against it was just planting a flag on the moon doesn't mean that we on the moon although i suspect people would like to argue that we do. it is very contentious simply because these countries are always contentious. and by the way, the antarctic was declared many, many years ago off-limits for any kind of

development. it is now a proposal being put forth, suggesting that maybe that wasn't such a good idea. maybe we ought to allow minimal drilling in the antarctic. in a properly is a lot of stuff to be found in the antarctic. so nations get greedy. and in the process, of getting greedy, excuse me, in the process of getting greedy they are trampling not only the rights of the people who happen to live there, but the animals who happen to live there. and as i say, they are probably the last consideration of politicians, certainly the last consideration of politicians who represent oil companies. there's a lot of oil up there. there's a lot of oil up there and nobody is going to buy something silly like a polar bear stand in the way of drilling for it. >> thank you, richard.

thank you. [applause] >> richard ellis is a marine conservation less an artist. his books include "imagining atlantis" and "tuna." it's also publish articles in audubon, "national geographic," discover,ricamagazines. for more information, visit richard ellis .info.

in the opening scene of gone with the wind, scarlet o'hare tells the salt and twins, war, war, war. if i think you say that word won market i'm i will coincide. well, ladies and gentlemen come the subsequent ml of the war has begun. last month at harpers ferry was commemorated the 150th anniversary of john brown's raid. the official start of both the national and the virginia subsequent daniel commemoration. regretfully, i like the centennial of 1961, there is no national committee to coordinate the observance of those four years and their lasting impact on america.

two years from this very month will be the subsequent daniel of lincoln's grant review at bailey's crossroads in fairfax county. the events which led julia ward howe to return here to willard hotel and a week in the early morning hours to write your immortal battle hymn of the republic. lincoln at the crossroads alliances the organization that has been working to past two years to commemorate president lincoln's grant review of 70,000 soldiers that so inspired julia ward howe. tonight we are meeting to celebrate out the likes of abraham lincoln and the vision of julia ward howe and your immortal battle hymn. you've are the true believers in the mystic chords of memory of the union that president lincoln referred to and in the end vision of it expressed in julia ward howe's battle hymn of the republic. in the early 1990's, a virginia

state highway marker was placed along route 72 do know the president lincoln's grant review. the honor guard was under the command of captain brian o anka of the 16 or two outs. a resident of bailey's crossroads out that time was the late bert shaq make him a from world war ii europe whose family had fled the ravages of europe after 1945 to come to america to start life anew. upon moving to bailey's, he came across information that told them the story of lincoln's grant review and of mrs. howe's immortal battle hymn. how sad he thought that this great man, this great event, his grade ten of the soul of america are lost and all but forgotten here in northern virginia. now his widow, maria elena says poor and lanky at the crossroads aligned to a week in northern virginia to its heritage of honor, of lincoln's grant review

and mrs. howe's immortal battle and of the republic. tonight we will hear from judge frank william who will deliver a few appropriate marks about this young lawyer from the prairie state of illinois. mr. bill styple will tell us about his new book, "tell me of lincoln: and also give us a first-person account of the grand review that he is discovered. mr. doug jammer sent and is america's music and fumble will continue their delightful musical made later in the evening. we will perhaps be joined by sarah epstein who will delight us with a story of her great, great, great grandparents and how they helped mr. lincoln near as president elect. and there is a frosting on the desert, as delicious as it was, and maria elena may have the most wonderful announcement to close the evening. and now allow me to briefly introduce the honorable frank

williams, recently retired chief justice of the rhode island supreme court who will deliver a few appropriate remarks about this magnificent young lawyer from illinois. judge frank williams hails from rhode island where he served for seven years chief justice of the rhode island supreme court. while serving and not high position, the president of the united states also asked chief justice williams to serve on the military commissions review panel with the rank of major general. judge williams is acknowledged to be one of america's leading authorities on the life and times of the young prairie lawyer from illinois. he has served as founding chairman of the lincoln form, president of the u.s. france association for 12 years he served as president of the lincoln group of boston. and for nine years, as president of the abraham lincoln association. judge williams is the author or

editor of over 11 books on mr. lanky and, the latest of which is lincoln lesson, reflections on america's greatest leaders. co-authored with william petersen and published by the southern illinois university press this year. judge williams is currently working on an annotated bibliography of all the lincoln titles published since the 1865. he should have that completed this weekend. [laughter] and at the same time, is writing a book on lincoln as hero. he has served on active duty with the united states army and the republic of vietnam. his decorations include the bronze star medal, three air medals, the army commendation medal, the combat infantry badge, which he is wearing in his lapel tonight. in the vietnamese gala tree cross the silver star for valor. a graduate of boston university school of law, he is also a master's degree in taxation, which in number by us may need

tonight after winning a number of those awards. and he is also an adjunct professor at roger williams university of law and being from the army, it is very difficult for me to say this. the united states naval war college in rhode island. it's a hardship because you know how bad they beat the army team every first week in december. he is listed as one of america's 500 leading judges and law dragon india's been married since 1966 to the former virginia, elizabeth mill year. i knew we had to have a southern connection in there somewhere. judge, if you will so honor as. [applause] >> thank you very much. it's an honor to be here. i do know about the a few appropriate remarks though. i wish i could be brief.

prime minister george canning was once asked by a preacher how he enjoyed the sermon and canning replied, you were brief. i said to the preacher, i like to avoid being tedious to which the prime minister said, you are also tedious. back so brevity is no guarantee of success. well, maria elena, you've done a great job with this group. i commend you for it. for preserving our heritage and the legacy of your dear husband. it means a lot to all of us. and i thank all of you for supporting the memory of lincoln, especially the hard and noble work of maria and her late husband. as we look to november 20, 1861,

but in 2011, as you said will be the anniversary. because abraham lincoln, contrary to what the generations foremost military historians, john keegan, has written in his new american civil war, his boat, this british and military book of our civil war. lincoln did visit his armies in the field. some 11 times and he spent 42 days in their camps. and to me here, by the way, on this historic site, despite you are waiting 50 years ago, paul and brenda, was lincoln president then to? [laughter] well, this is a great home of the original willard, were lincoln arrived on february 23rd from baltimore, disguised and criticized as being disguised because there

was an assassination plot that had been uncovered to kill him in baltimore when the trains transfer from one station to the other. and he greeted, didn't t., the peace conference that was going on, led by the former president tyler. it was not successful. it couldn't be. it was too late then. and here he revised his critical and not your old address and took some of the suggestions from his secretary of state designate on the william h. seward who wanted the job of president. particularly the last two paragraphs, remember them? in your hand, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. the government will not fail

you. you can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressor. you have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government while i shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it. i am loathed to close. we are not enemies, but friends. we must not be enemies. though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. the mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and future grave, and every living heart and hot stone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the union, when again touched as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. if there ever was an icon that stood for everything, it is

abraham lincoln. he is remembered for his kurds and leadership, his peacefulness and compassion, his patriotism and devotion to the union and his ability to lead the nation through civil war. his role in this country's collective memory is immeasurable. but we are talking about today is memory and how it is best presented by historians and writers who make the past relevance. no president has such a hold on our mind is abraham lincoln. he lived at the dawn of hypocrisy in his pinecone phase makes a haunting picture. he was the best writer in all american politics and his words are even more powerful then his

images. today's politicians continue to invoke abraham lincoln at every opportunity. take for instance president obama, who took a page from lincoln's book by appointing a so-called team of rivals to his cabinet. if the past is prologue for what the future holds, society can only benefit from lincoln and the lessons that his legacy teaches us. although lincoln is so revered today, this was not always the case. before his death, lincoln was only a moderately popular president. there were times when lincoln was the object of far more hatred than live. in the election of 1860, lincoln took only 39% of the popular vote, the second lowest percentage of any one of her a lot good to the presidency. lincoln's popularity grew during his presidency, but he still had

his critics which included cyrus as the karmic, inventor of the far briefer and samuel fb morse, inventor of the telegraph. probably more than a million voters in the north who believed in the justice of the southern course. notwithstanding, lincoln was also accumulating an increasing number of supporters. today lincoln seems to be even more popular than he was immediately following his death. reflecting on that trend, u.s.a. has remarked abraham lincoln is hot. scholars say even he would be amused. from magazine covers to the front of teachers, from booksignings to meet cm opening, honest abe is center stage. lincoln is remembered as the leader who spoke the enduring word in gettysburg as students

once memorized weird the story of which is so splendidly told i look or pour it in his gettysburg gospel. the commander-in-chief who reunited the nation by winning the civil war and the chief executive who was constantly ranked highest among all american presidents. thanks in part to historians and writers. lincoln's popularity has managed to transcend both time and place because blank and is many things to different people. we know him don't we as lincoln the loiter? link in the great emancipator. link in the great politician and president. lincoln the commander-in-chief. historians and lincoln scholars have not written not only about lincoln and his different roles, but also about lincoln's personal life, his marriage, his

preference is, his religion and his alleged medical and psychological problems. his greatest trial, the civil war, was the nation's greatest trial. in the race problem that caused it is still with us today. his death by murder gave his life appointed and violent climax and allows us to play the always fascinating game of what is. abraham lincoln did great things, greater than anything done by theodore roosevelt or franklin delano roosevelt. he freed the slaves and saved the union. and because he feeds the union he was able to free the slaves. beyond this however, our extraordinary interest in him and his team for him has to do with what he said and how he said it. and much of this had to do with

the union, what it was and why it was worth the saving. he saved it by fighting and winning the war of course. but his initial step in this was the decision to go to war, not a popular decision and certainly not an easy one. his predecessor, the incompetent james buchanan, believed that the state had no right to succeed from the union but there was nothing he could do about it if they did. that, by the time lincoln took office, seven southern states have succeeded and nothing had been done about it. led by south carolina, they claim to be doing only what they and the other side done in 1776. to oppose them might bring on the war and buchanan had no stomach for this. lincoln knew that the time had

come when the only way to save the union was to go to war. but could he say so and retain the support of the people who had voted for him? for abolitionists, slavery was a sin and the slaveholders thinners. but they're leading spokesperson william lloyd garrison was no friend of the union. he said, the constitution was a covenant with death and an agreement with hell. during the fort sumter crisis, garrison said, all union saving up for hours simply idiotic. it is not by chance that one of lincoln's best speeches was delivered on a battlefield on the occasion of dedicating a cemetery for those who thought, died, and were buried there. we remember. lincoln says that the brave men,

living and dead who struggled on this ground, this battlefield had consecrated its better than he or anyone else could. their cause was great and noble. we also remember lincoln saying that their work was unfinished and now we the living should highly resolve should not have died in vain, that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom and the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. we remember everything he said that we remember it because he took great pains to say it's beautifully. we also remember his second inaugural address, especially the concluding paragraph, the pointed beauty of it with malice

towards none, with charity for all, with firmness on the right as god gives us to see the right. a lot of strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for and who shall have won the battle and for his widow and his often, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. six weeks later she was murdered. we say that a man can be known by the company he keeps. a nation of people can be known and be judged by its heroes who made honors above all others. we pay ourselves the greatest compliment when we say that abraham lincoln is that man for

us. so we celebrate the bicentennial of his birth with fanfare and reference, after 200 years he still looks good. i can only hope on my 200th birthday i look as good. on 1922, there were four kinds of bugs that number, under any circumstances to lose money in the united states. first, but tacna stories. second, novels in which the is divulged by the hero. thirdly, volumes on spiritualism occultism and other such clad trap. in fourthly, books on lincoln. [laughter] times change, so do profits and losses are publishing houses. but not apparently when you are talking about books about

abraham lincoln. in apical american event is 200 earth day is being marked by an inundation of new lincoln books, the likes of which few of us have ever seen. between 1865 and 2009, well over 14,000 titles and more than 2000 juvenile books on lincoln have been published. launching a new biography of lincoln in 1922, forming a united states senator, alberts j. beveridge denied that the last word on lincoln had already been written by arguing that the first word has not been banned. today the first words are still being written. a lincoln bugs with ever greater frequency. one a week as every generation seeks to discover lincoln for

himself. it's self. in some ways the past two decades have been a golden age of lincoln scholarship. theodore roosevelt complained for family by his times had denied him greatness because he could not preside during world war i. a man has to take advantage of his opportunities he said after leaving office. but the opportunities have to come. if lincoln had lived in times of peace, no one would know his name now. not only what authors continue to write about lincoln, but they've managed to find new and unexplored topics on which to base their works. although the traditional themes are still discussed, martyn biographers have focused increasingly on lincoln's personal life and explore the little-known aspects.

in recent years, this is mosque into a kind of pseudo- scholarly debunking in which we have announced to revise, mostly in the negative our understanding of not only his lyrical skills and religious beliefs, but also his marital relations, his preferences and his racial views. it has always been a constant obsession with his health. in addition to his well-known melancholy attributed in part to the death of his mother, the death of his purported fiancé and interpersonal problems with his wife, mary, as well as political challenges and failures, there are also tales that lincoln suffered from and upset stomach and even. some have theorized that lincoln suffered from a genetic disorder

characterized by long limbs and fingers, typically tall stature and a predisposition to melancholy cardiovascular abnormalities and sudden death. more recent reports suggest that lincoln did not suffer from it at all come about something called multiple endocrine neoplastic syndrome type two. [laughter] a rare condition in which several endocrine glands develop tumors. it is a wonder with all these health ailments that lincoln never got anything done. or lived past 30. but we haven't always explored lincoln's personal life and health problems. the first birth to death works were published very soon after his death. these writings contained very little analysis about lincoln. instead, they were largely