Republican Party holds Lincoln Day Dinner
MARSHALL COUNTY — The Republican Party of Marshall County held the Lincoln Day Dinner on Tuesday, april 23 at Swan Lake Resort.
Marshall Superior Court No. II Judge Dean Colvin was Emcee. He introduced Deborah Vandemark Chair of the Republican Party, Jim Masterson Vice Chair and Minister of the Republican Party, Bryan Howard - Treasurer, and Sharron Dotta Secretary.
Howard led the Pledge of allegiance. Linda Starr led the “Star Spangled Banner”.
Masterson led the prayer. “What a wonderful evening it is - you look around and there are such beautiful, beautiful people here. You know - we need to extend our hands out to one another and love each other just as God loves us. Father God, we just thank you tonight that we have the opportunity to meet in this place and to gather and to be one in one accord with you, Lord. We ask for you to bless everyone that is here this evening, Lord. There are several of us, Father God, that have unspoken requests, but we know that you know each and every one of those and we know, Father God, that you will minister to each one of those. Father, we are proud, proud people to be Republicans and we are so proud, Lord, to be citizens of the United States where we have the opportunity, Father, to pick the leaders for our party and for the nation and the state. We just pray, Father God, for unity and harmony among each and every one of us for your word says we need to love each other and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We thank you for that, Lord. We ask for you to bless everyone that is here tonight, Lord, and I just wish to ask you to bless Martha Walorski tonight, Father God, as one of our best friend’s Jackie who laid it all on the line for each and every one of us. We thank you for the opportunity for knowing her and for the service she
did for our country. Father, we ask for you to bless the food we are about to partake, help us Lord God to do your will, to walk in your light and to be your people. All these things, Lord, we ask in the name of Jesus Christ and all of God’s people said, Amen.”
Former Senator Randy Head, and current lobbyist, spoke on Abraham Lincoln. He shared about Lincoln’s integrity and empathy. As an example of Lincoln’s empathy he read a letter written by Lincoln to a mother who was believed to have lost all of her sons in the war. “Dear Madame, I have been shown in the files of the war department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved, and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.”
Head shared that Lincoln did not focus on himself, but the country and the world. Head shared an excerpt from Lincoln’s second inaugural address. “On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it ~ all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place devoted altogether to saving the Union without war insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war ~ seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. 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.” He continued, “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 ~ that of neither has been answered fully. 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 bondman’s two hundred and fifty 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 three thousand years ago so still it must be said, ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’ With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us 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.”
Head summarized that just three of the things Republicans can learn from Lincoln is how to pick their battles based on what’s important, have empathy for people, and finally that it was never about Lincoln but for him it was about the much greater cause ~ freedom, God’s will, doing what’s best for everyone, and being that beacon ~ what President Reagan later calling a shining city on a hill. “Abraham Lincoln helped make it and helped create it. We are the inheritors of his legacy and how lucky are we. I appreciate the chance to speak all of you tonight. Thank you very much.”