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it's funny you should mention lincoln...
lincoln was an unlikely president with only a slim electoral victory after a long line of personal and political failures. he was hated with unprecedented intensity by many of his countrymen by continuing a costly and unpopular war. reviled by the press at home and abroad... foreign ambassadors considered his portrait too ugly to represent the country. even his former political allies and generals regularly attacked him on grounds that he was much too stupid to guide the country through a crisis (mccellan once called him a "well-meaning baboon"). his appeal and unlikely re-election to a second term baffled the entire democrat political machine. what's more, he curtailed civil liberties and exiled political opponents to retain his hold on power and prosecute the war.
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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
~ Winston Churchill
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