Author And Finisher

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?  I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us.  It cannot come from abroad.  If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.  As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

-- Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865), 16th President of the United States, The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions: Lincoln's address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois (27 January 1838)