A More Perfect Union

''From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some transatlantic giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe and Asia could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio River or set a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we will live forever, or die by suicide.

(Abraham Lincoln, address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, IL, January, 1838)''

There'll be no more counting the cars on the garden state parkway

Nor waiting for the Fung Wah bus to carry me to who-knows-where

And when I stand tonight, 'neath the lights of the Fenway

Will I not yell like hell for the glory of the Newark Bears?

Because where I'm going to now, no one can ever hurt me

Where the well of human hatred is shallow and dry

No, I never wanted to change the world, but I'm looking for a new New Jersey

Because tramps like us, baby, we were born to die

I'm doing seventy on seventeen, eighty over eighty four

And I never let the Meritt Parkway magnetize me no more

Give me a brutal Somerville summer,

Give me a cruel New England winter

Give me the great Pine Barrens

So I can see them turned into splinters

And if I come in on a donkey, let me go out on a gurney

I want to realize too late I never should have left New Jersey

I sense the enemy, they're rustling around in the trees

I thought I had gotten away but the followed me to 02143

Woe, oh woe is me, no one knows the trouble I see

When they hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree, I'll sit beneath the leaves and weep

None of us shall be saved, every man will be a slave

For John Brown's body lies a'mouldring in the grave and there's rumbling down in the caves

So if it's time for choosing sides, and to show this dirty city how we do the Jersey Slide

And if it deserves a better class of criminal,

Then I'ma give it to them tonight

So we'll rally around the flag, rally around the flag

Rally around the flag, boys, rally once again,

Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom

Rally around the flag, rally around the flag

Glory, glory, Hallelujah, His truth is marching on