Despite that the group hug of Presidents Day is upon us again, I'd rather focus on one out of that often-undistinguished lot who deserves our special appreciation every year, but particularly this one. Quite simply, we wouldn't still be the United States without him.

One hundred sixty years ago, on March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln stood on the east portico of the Capitol to deliver his second inaugural address. That's what most of us consider the back porch of the building, because it faces away from the long view down the mall and Pennsylvania Avenue, toward where Lincoln's words are now chiseled forever inside his memorial. 

It's probably fitting that he stood there, because he wasn't the type to boast about how many more people attended the speech than that of his predecessors.

Our presidents probably deliver more speeches than anyone else on the planet during their terms in office, so you'd think there would be many of those words memorable enough to reverberate long afterwards. Yet when we try to dredge up those dynamic or moving or lyrical phrases that have achieved true staying power, there just aren't many of them that come to mind. 

In fact, I'm drawing a blank here and can't quickly recall any of them beyond, "Ask not what your country can do for you…," or "Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall." And even if we can recall others, most of those lines were likely wordsmithed by the respective president's speechwriting staff.

That is, until you arrive at Abraham Lincoln.

From the first inaugural: "I am loath 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 patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone 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."

From those 272 "appropriate remarks" spoken at Gettysburg, but I won't insult you; you don't need me to remind you about those phrases that no one else could have written. It took him just two minutes from beginning to end, and when he finished, those in attendance said there was almost no reaction. Many were stunned. Everyone expected him to go on and on. After all, Edward Everett, the first speaker, had talked for more than two hours.  But Lincoln had said what needed to be said and he stopped there. History has decided he was right.

And from that second inaugural that took him less than 10 minutes to deliver: "Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came." 

"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered."

Then, "Fondly do we hope -- fervently do we pray -- that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said, 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’"

And finally, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

I still get goosebumps just reading those words I've read dozens of times. You may have other hopes for your president, but those are the kinds of things I want my president to tell me.  I want to know that he or she cares about all of us and is trying to inspire us to do more for each other and to be better citizens. 

Lincoln had just 41 days left when he said those last words.  Would we be a better, more equitable country if he'd lived?  Would civil rights have progressed faster and not taken another 160 years to evolve so haltingly?  I don't know, but I want to think so, and I want our leaders today to act like they think so, too.

L. Phillips Runyon III has practiced law in Peterborough for 50 years and was the presiding justice of the 8th Circuit Court for 27 years.