In the spring of 1859, Abraham Lincoln was invited by a committee of Boston Republicans to attend a festival in honor of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. Instead, he sent a letter that explains, perhaps better than anything else Lincoln wrote except for the Gettysburg Address, what it is that we celebrate when we celebrate the Fourth of July. Lincoln began by noting a historical irony: Roughly 70 years earlier, America’s two main political parties had gotten their start. The Democrats of his day held “the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man’s right of property,” Lincoln wrote. “Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar, but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.”

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Persons: Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson’s, Lincoln, “, ” Lincoln, John C, Calhoun, Stephen Douglas Organizations: Boston Republicans, Gettysburg, Democratic, Republicans, Federalists, “ Republicans