The Kephartsburg Address

Nine fortnights and four days ago the Karpeles Manuscript Library brought forth in this city documents, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men (and women) should come see them.

We are now engaged in a great holiday war, testing whether we, or anyone, can endure long enough through this holiday to visit the Karpeles before the exhibit closes. We are met on a great battlefield of shopping, family and tree-decoration. We have come to dedicate a portion of the Karpeles as a final resting place (at least until Dec. 30) for these documents about those who gave their lives that this museum might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot duplicate, we cannot regurgitate, we cannot own these documents. They are collected here, far above our poor power to add or detract. Or do any other kind of math to. The world will little note, nor remember what I said here - unless they go to the Internet version, which'll be around forever. But these documents won't. They're gone Saturday.

"The Final Days of the America Civil War," 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Karpeles Manuscript Library, 407 S. G St., Tacoma, free admission, 253.383.2575

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