The Second Inaugural Address of President Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th President of the United States, was superb. It should be remembered as the ‘Golden Age of America’ speech, but it will probably just be referenced as Trump’s Second Inaugural.
It was Abraham Lincoln who borrowed from the Book of Proverbs when he described the American commitment to individual liberty as the ‘apple of gold’ protected by the Constitution’s ‘frame of silver.’
Lincoln declared in 1861 that ‘there is in the Union a crucial promise of ‘Liberty to all’’ and noted it was ‘the principle that clears the path for all—gives hope to all—and, by consequence, enterprise, and industry to all.’
‘The expression of that principle,’ asserted Lincoln, ‘in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy, and fortunate.’ Our greatest president continued: ‘Without this, as well as with it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government, and consequent prosperity. No oppressed people will fight and endure, as our fathers did, without the promise of something better than a mere change of masters.’
