Thomas Jefferson, even had he not been president, would have been someone whom I would have admired because of his philosophy of government.  Abraham Lincoln held together the union, that Jefferson helped create, while abolishing slavery during the Civil War.  And Franklin D. Roosevelt, kept our country from going either fascist or communist during the early thirties, defending our country on two oceans against those who would destroy our union and our democracy.  

These three are my favorite Americans regardless of any of their personal foibles.

I'm happy that today we have elected an African-American as president, something I'm sure none of these other presidents could have imagined. It seems that over the years that we have been moving toward “a more perfect union” and a better defined democracy, one admired by most thinking people all over the world.

This was one of those improbable experiments that carried within its beginning one of the worst elements of humanity, that of enslaving members of our own human race.

This election is the first step of many that will be required, if we are to survive as a democracy, as we move toward a multi-racial nation.  We are at the beginning of making this happen and we should be steady as we go during the trying years that this overall process will take.  I'm happy these events have begun to take shape during my lifetime.