Booth

by Karen Joy Fowler

In his speech, he warns of two possible threats to the republic. The first is found in the lawless actions of the mob, the second in the inevitable rise someday of an aspiring dictator. The gravest peril will come if the mob and the dictator unite.

No girl knows she’s ugly until someone tells her so and every ugly girl remembers the someone who first told her.

Is that what real acting is, that moment you stop pretending? And if so, can a person ever be sure, even offstage, even in the parlor of his own house, that he isn’t simply acting a part?

This is a good reminder that no one in the world is a reliable source for their own story.

To the children of Shakespeare all the world’s a metaphor.

The Dred Scott decision is now generally agreed to be the worst Supreme Court ruling in all of American history though not for lack of competition.

Lincoln reviews these case by case, weeding out those who participated in the massacres from those who fought as soldiers. In this way, he commutes the sentences of two hundred and sixty-five. The remaining thirty-eight are hanged together on December 26th. They go to the gallows singing. This remains the largest act of presidential clemency in United States history. Also the largest mass execution.

The Lost Cause may be temporarily mislaid, but it has never been lost. Whenever Black people exercise genuine political power in this country, the assassin appears, the mob rises. This is the history of America and there is no escaping it. Abraham Lincoln told us so.