___What is there about the month of February?
Superstitious people could believe that February 12 has some significance to God or some other super natural force. On or about this date some of the most famous and significant people were born. If they were not born precisely on this date they were born a few days before or later. The two most famous are Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. Both of them were born on this date.
George Washington was born on February 22. Ronald Reagan was born on February 6. Sarah Palin on February 11. Thomas Edison on February 11. Jack Benny on February 14. Susan B. Anthony on February 15. Nicolas Copernicus was born on February 19. Ansel Adams was on February 20. Edward (Ted) Kennedy and Chopin were born on February 22. George Fredric Handel, composer of “Messiah” in 1841, was born on February 23. John Steinbeck and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were both born on February 27.
Abraham Lincoln personified the evolution of man that Charles Darwin theorized. Of course Darwin’s “Origin of Species” was about the physical evolution of life but I believe it can also be applied to the evolution of mankind. The Magna Carta (The Great Charter) originally signed in 1215 is considered to be the beginning of the evolution of man’s rights in an ever developing world.
Only three of the original clauses in Magna Carta are still law. One defends the freedom and rights of the English church, another confirms the liberties and customs of London and other towns, but the third is the most famous:
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled . nor will we proceed with force against him . except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.
This statement of principle, buried deep in Magna Carta, was given no particular prominence in 1215, but its intrinsic adaptability has allowed succeeding generations to reinterpret it for their own purposes and this has ensured its longevity. In the fourteenth century Parliament saw it as guaranteeing trial by jury. Sir Edward Coke interpreted it as a declaration of individual liberty in his conflict with the early Stuart kings and it has resonant echoes in the American Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is part of America’s evolution starting with the Declaration of Independence that has brought the country to elect its first Black president. The whole world should be enthused by the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln and ought to believe that all societies can aspire to the same ideals.
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