You could hear a pin drop in the banquet hall as the 16th President of the United States addressed the crowd of 152 during a fund-raiser for the Lone Ranger Festival and Parade held Friday evening at the Indianwood Golf and Country Club in Orion Township.

Equality and liberty were the themes stressed by President Abraham Lincoln* as he captivated the audience with his powerful message, a message that rings just as true in the 21st century as it did in the 19th century.

Lincoln urged people to not allow “the evils of slavery” to simply become “a distant memory” as the years pass.

“When we no longer see or hear a thing, it is easy to forget,” he said.

But that’s dangerous because the desire among some men to control others never leaves humanity. It’s spanned the ages, from the ancient Egyptian pharaohs enslaving the Israelites to the plantation owners of the antebellum American south enslaving Africans.

“There will always be those who wish to govern without the consent of those being governed,” Lincoln said. “There will always be those who think themselves superior to other groups of people.”

“A man once told me that it was the natural order of things for those of lighter skin to be in control of those with darker skin,” he continued. “I suggested that he be very careful not to run into someone with lighter skin than his.”

Lincoln warned the crowd to beware of those who think themselves superior to others not just based on skin color, but on education, geography and political position.

This type of thinking is especially menacing when it takes root in the hearts and minds of senators and congressmen.

“They think themselves better at making decisions than the people they represent,” Lincoln said. “They begin to think that they should make more and more decisions for the people.”

But the president made it clear that’s not what he believes.

“It has always been my belief that government should do for people only what the people cannot do for themselves,” he said. “The difficulty arises when we in the government begin to think that the people can do nothing for themselves.”

Lincoln warned people “must be careful not to give the government too much power,” especially when it comes to the decisions they make in their daily lives.

“Imagine if the government should decide that there are too many horses in the land and they’re leaving behind too much waste – that the horse you own is too large, eats too much hay and too many oats, and therefore, must be replaced with a smaller one,” he said.

“Imagine if the government were to decide that you burn too many candles in your house and you use the wrong kind of oil in your lamps. And now the government will decide for you which oil to use and how many candles you may burn.”

Fortunately, Lincoln said the American people are currently free to live wherever they wish, work at any job they please and spend their money however they choose.

“We have control of our lives,” he said.

However, Lincoln warned that could all change if voters give power to officials who believe in themselves more than the people they’re elected to serve.

“I would caution you to beware of any political candidate who, to obtain your vote, tells you that he will get the government to solve all your problems,” he said. “We can’t even solve our own.”

Lincoln reminded the audience that although people say they want liberty, it doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.

“The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty,” he said. “With some, the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself and the product of his labor. While for others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men and the product of other men’s labor.”

Ask the sheep and the wolf what they mean by liberty and two very different answers will be proffered.

“The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one,” Lincoln said.

“There will always be those who consider themselves superior to others. They think themselves better able to make decisions for those who are less educated or darker skinned,” the president said. “Beware of those who would think so little of another group of people that they would deny citizenship, or even life, to those people.”

*President Lincoln was portrayed by Fred Priebe, a re-enactor from Belleville who’s been bringing the great 19th-century statesman to life for modern audiences since 1996. Priebe’s speech at Indianwood was a mixture of Lincoln’s words and his own words. His wife, Bonnie, portrays First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.