“Only a fool squanders his time and energy searching out the next pebble on the road of life to trip over.” - Arnold Kunst

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

July 11

In August 1862, the month before the issuance of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Wendell Phillips, one of the most influential abolitionists of the day, wrote that the President “has no mind whatever. He has not uttered a word that gives even a twilight glimpse of any antislavery purpose. He may be honest - nobody cares whether a tortoise is honest or not; he has neither insight, nor prevision, nor decision. As long as you keep the present turtle at the head of the Government you make a pit with one hand and fill it with the other.”