Two days away from the Fourth of July the Republican Party has to decide if the day heralds the “progressive improvement in the condition of all men everywhere” or is just an occasion to set off some firecrackers while worrying about the drug dealers, criminals, and rapists who arrive from Mexico. The GOP has to decide if it’s the Party of Lincoln, or the Party of Trump.

At Independence Hall in Philadelphia on February 22, 1861 Lincoln said this:

I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. . . I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.

Lincoln made the “progressive improvement” remark in the Dred Scott Speech, in a passage responding to Stephen Douglas’s argument that the Declaration was meant to apply only to British subjects in America being equal to British subjects residing in Great Britain. Lincoln responded that Douglas’s reading would not only exclude Blacks, but many “French, Germans and other white people of the world are all gone to pot along with the Judge’s inferior races.” Thus, “I understand you are preparing to celebrate the ‘Fourth,’ tomorrow week. What for?”

In an August 1855 letter to his friend Joshua Speed, Lincoln wrote:

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes" When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].

Finally, here is a passage from Lincoln’s Address to Germans at Cincinnati in February 1861:

In regard to the Germans and foreigners, I esteem them no better than other people, nor any worse. It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles---the oppression of tyranny---to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke, than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

Inasmuch as our country is extensive and new, and the countries of Europe are densely populated, if there are any abroad who desire to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to throw aught in their way, to prevent them from coming to the United States.

If the Republican Party is to be the Party of Lincoln, party leaders must denounce Trump’s racist rant. This job falls squarely on Jeb Bush, whose wife is Mexican. A few words of Spanish in his announcement speech is just window dressing if he doesn’t take on Trump and what he represents. If Trump had disparaged the racial heritage of Bess Truman, Harry would have offered to punch him in the nose. Jeb doesn't need to go that far but this is the time to stand up.

So Republicans, are you the Party of Lincoln, or the Party of Trump?