Excerpt from Dedication Addresses for the F. Ray Risdon Lincoln Collection: Occidental College Library, April 15, 1957 Jefferson, Franklin and Others who tower in our history. Rather, they see in Lincoln a man to whom our federal civic system rose to the sublimity of a religious mysticism to quote Alexander Stephens. They see in Lincoln the epitome of Amer ican civics - as President Eisenhower sees him. Two score and seven years ago F. Ray Risdon conceived the idea of a Lincoln library, dedicating himself to the proposition that to know the life and life-purpose of Abraham Lincoln is to understand better and be better prepared to preserve our Federal Union, which Lincoln gave the last full measure of devotion to save. We are met to dedicate the E Ray Risdon Lincoln Collection. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate 3 Lincoln Library. It IS rather for us, as a living Occidental College community, and as part of the Los Angeles civic community, to be here dedicated to the maintenance and study of this Risdon Lincoln Collection, that Lincoln may still live in our midst. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.