Until he became President–when war consumed him and the old tradition of presidential reticence forbade ubiquity on the stump–Lincoln unfailingly wrote new words to fit every occasion: from memorials, to Fourths of July, to political mass meetings, to state fairs, to flag-raisings. Each opportunity inspired fresh words.

True, he carried in his pocket to all seven of his celebrated 1858 Senate debates a small notebook filled with pasted-up reprints of his own old speeches, along with the text of the Declaration of Independence–from all of which he quoted liberally. But the thought of remaining mute at a great, challenging event, and instead intoning the words of old heroes, would never have occurred to him.

One can surely imagine Lincoln himself rising to today’s occasion at Ground Zero. But probably not with the Gettysburg Address. He might not have been satisfied with a speech tailored so specifically to honor the battle dead of Gettysburg, and calling for both increased devotion and increased sacrifice. In fact, the modern reader–and speaker–might just as easily cull quite a different message from elsewhere in the Lincoln canon: not only from Lincoln’s prose, but his poetry. Perhaps it, too, is worth considering.

Here is how Lincoln himself might conceivably have consecrated Ground Zero (had he, too, enjoyed neither the time nor inclination to start afresh). Timelessly, and powerfully, Lincoln still speaks to us. But perhaps he ought not to speak for us.

I hear the loved survivors tell

How naught from death could save,

Till every sound appears a knell,

And every spot a grave

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me (Springfield, Ill. Dec., 1839). To correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy, and from positive enmity, among strangers, as nations, or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization. (Wisconsin, Sept.,1859). They must blow out the moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate there the love of liberty (Bloomington, Ill., Sept., 1858).

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it (Cooper Union, NYC, Feb., 1860).

Engaged, as I am, in a great war, I fear it will be difficult for the world to understand how fully I appreciate the principles of peace (Letter, March., 1862). Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better, or equal, hope in the world?… We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies (First inaugural address, March., 1861).

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose–and you allow him to make war at pleasure (Letter, Feb., 1848). With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations (Second inaugural address, March, 1865).

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation (Message to Congress, Dec., 1862).

Mario M. Cuomo served for twelve years as Governor of New York. Harold Holzer, co-chair of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, has authored, co-authored and edited 21 books on Lincoln and the Civil War. They are currently collaborating on a book about Lincoln’s meanings for our times.