| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny
that such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties
to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled
to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other
departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that
such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect
following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that
it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases,
can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice.
At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy
of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: delphia. He said he thought not, but he would
call in some persons who knew more about the
laws than himself. He then went out, and kindly
brought in several of the leading abolitionists of
the city, who gave us a most hearty and friendly
welcome amongst them. As it was in December,
and also as we had just left a very warm climate,
they advised us not to go to Canada as we had
intended, but to settle at Boston in the United
States. It is true that the constitution of the Re-
public has always guaranteed the slaveholders the
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: The besiegers, appalled by their own riot and the stillness
that had succeeded, stood back a little and peered in. There lay
the cabinet before their eyes in the quiet lamplight, a good fire
glowing and chattering on the hearth, the kettle singing its thin
strain, a drawer or two open, papers neatly set forth on the
business table, and nearer the fire, the things laid out for tea;
the quietest room, you would have said, and, but for the glazed
presses full of chemicals, the most commonplace that night in
London.
Right in the middle there lay the body of a man sorely
contorted and still twitching. They drew near on tiptoe, turned
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
