Friend Grant said OK
President Lincoln was trying to please his son Robert, his wife Mary, and his general Grant. He seems pretty confident that the war will soon and finally come to an end.
From The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Volume Seven:
WASHINGTON, January 19, 1865.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT:
Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but only a friend. My son, now in his twenty-second year, having graduated at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends. I do not wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give him a commission, to which those who have already served long are better entitled and better qualified to hold. Could he, without embarrassment to you, or detriment to the service, go into your military family with some nominal rank, I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? If no, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious and as deeply interested that you shall not be encumbered as you can be yourself.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
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“Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Washington, D.C.” (Library of Congress)
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
