The nation goes into this fourth of July holiday weekend at pivotal period of our nation’s history.

Next year we’ll be marking 250 years of independence … our "semiquincentennial." Quite an achievement and a word —quite an experiment in democracy it has been.

As we mark this day, I don’t need to remind you—but it still bears stating: Our nation is deeply divided; often bitterly so divided; and with a number of examples we could point to, sometimes violently divided.

And yet I still resonate with the words of Abraham Lincoln—spoken a month before he issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country….  We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

I still believe it.

Have a great 4th. And may God bless America— “the last, best hope.”