Happy Birthday, Honest Abe: Morning Cup 02/12/14

"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition, is yet to be developed." - Abraham Lincoln

Pictured Above: The self-educated, chin-strappin', law-abiding, from-frontier-riding 16th President of the United States, Lincoln led the country through the bloodiest of crisis, the Civil War, but in doing so he preserved the Union — and the nation at that — and took the first step towards equality in abolish slavery. Reared in a poor family in the then-wildest west, he was truly a man of his own devices. Unfortunately, we've (collectively) forgotten a whole lot about him, or perhaps never learned much to begin with; thus, a look back at past and present perspectives.