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Recalling the words of Abe Lincoln as election day approaches

Recalling the words of Lincoln
Recalling the words of Abe Lincoln as Election Day approaches | 60 Minutes 01:12

Tonight, candidates in the mid-term elections are approaching the end of the trail and voters the end of their ropes. It's been as long, as negative and as nasty a campaign as anyone can remember. Opponents are not only wrong, but they love crime or are too extreme for your state or congressional district. The other guy is plotting to take away your guns or your personal rights or your constitutional freedoms -- or your country.

Candidates – or the political action committees supporting or fundraising for them – see the need to demonize the other side – to strip the other candidate – of humanity itself.

In his second inaugural address Abe Lincoln, who knew a little bit about how deep divisions wound a country, spoke of binding up those wounds, "With malice toward none with charity for all." 

Maybe a Lincoln biography should be required reading for any candidate before the next election.

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