By Michael Johns
By most estimates, over three million Americans attended a 912 Project event on September 12, 2009. The project was launched by the great Glenn Beck of Fox News, and I have supported it wholeheartedly and believe it to be one of the most constructive political movements to emerge in our lifetimes. Glenn covered the event remotely from Fox's New York studios, and millions more tuned in for his coverage of it.
Because much of my message on September 12 was that change must come to Washington, D.C., not from it, I chose to speak at the second largest 912 Project event that day (after Washington, D.C., where over a million people gathered), held at Washington Park in Quincy, Illinois. Washington Park was selected because of its historic role, on October 13, 1858, as host to the largest of the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates. I was honored to be joined by some of the nation's best leaders in the 912 and Tea Party movements, including Andrew Breitbart, Bill Hennessey, Kevin Jackson, Michael Patrick Leahy, Dana Loesch, and others.
I will let my message in Quincy stand for itself. But the essence is that these are deadly serious times, as were Lincoln's in 1858, and that Americans must--right now--recommit ourselves to our Constitution and liberty, or this nation will find itself far down a very different, ominous path that erodes nearly all the tenets of American exceptionalism:
Speech by Michael Johns to Patriots on the Prairie Tea Party, Quincy Illinois, September 12, 2009.
By most estimates, over three million Americans attended a 912 Project event on September 12, 2009. The project was launched by the great Glenn Beck of Fox News, and I have supported it wholeheartedly and believe it to be one of the most constructive political movements to emerge in our lifetimes. Glenn covered the event remotely from Fox's New York studios, and millions more tuned in for his coverage of it.
Because much of my message on September 12 was that change must come to Washington, D.C., not from it, I chose to speak at the second largest 912 Project event that day (after Washington, D.C., where over a million people gathered), held at Washington Park in Quincy, Illinois. Washington Park was selected because of its historic role, on October 13, 1858, as host to the largest of the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates. I was honored to be joined by some of the nation's best leaders in the 912 and Tea Party movements, including Andrew Breitbart, Bill Hennessey, Kevin Jackson, Michael Patrick Leahy, Dana Loesch, and others.
I will let my message in Quincy stand for itself. But the essence is that these are deadly serious times, as were Lincoln's in 1858, and that Americans must--right now--recommit ourselves to our Constitution and liberty, or this nation will find itself far down a very different, ominous path that erodes nearly all the tenets of American exceptionalism:
Speech by Michael Johns to Patriots on the Prairie Tea Party, Quincy Illinois, September 12, 2009.
Michael Johns is a health care executive and conservative author and writer. He served previously as a White House speechwriter and Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst. This article, which appeared originally in Michael Johns' blog, is reprinted here with permission. The Michael Johns Blog can be accessed directly at:
http://michaeljohnsonfreedomandprosperity.blogspot.com/
