Rose State College

The keynote speaker for Rose State College’s Law Day observances, Chief Judge Robert H. Henry, United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Court said that it took President Abraham Lincoln to ensure the promises made by the founding fathers.
In speaking before the packed Rose State College Student Center Main Dining Room as a guest of the Eighth Annual James F. Howell "Country Lawyer" Lectureship series, Henry said he realized that Lincoln’s vision became true while attending the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
“I was overcome how Mr. (Thomas) Jefferson’s declaration, correctly interpreted by Lincoln, had finally become the law of the land, and I have lived to see it. All people are created equal, with equal rights, including the right to become President,” Henry said.
Henry, a longtime Oklahoma native, former state legislator and attorney general, said he picked Lincoln’s second inaugural address as the subject for the Law Day speech because of the text’s lesson in healing national division, noting the quote from the speech, “With malice toward none; with charity for all...”
“Because of this country lawyer named Abraham Lincoln, our law includes the most fundamental of human rights, that being that when we determine what they are, they belong to all of humanity,” Henry said.