Springfield, IL--Donald Trump, at a rally in the city where Abraham Lincoln launched his political career, was caught plagiarizing the person whom many consider to be the founder of the Republican Party in a campaign speech he delivered to a group of angry supporters, who chanted, toward the end of the speech, "Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!" and "Build the wall! Build the wall! Build the wall!"
The text of Trump's speech, CNN reports, bore a striking resemblance to Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address. What follows is the close of his speech:
"In my hands, my aggrieved fellow-countrymen, and not in yours, is the momentous issue of how to make America great again. The government of Barack Hussein Obama and Crooked Hillary will, any day now, assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, though that's no reason not to try, while I alone shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend the government,' once I temporarily suspend the Constitution while I am building that wall and deporting nine million Mexicans." (Chant begins.)
"I am loath to close, having only gone on for seventy-five minutes. We are not friends with the brown-skinned people, but enemies. Though passion may have strained, it has not yet broken this nation in two. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every mosque and illegal immigrant hideout to the frightened heart of every Caucasian all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again inflamed, as surely it will be, by the bitter angels of our nature."
When a news reporter at the rally pointed out to Trump that his speech bore a close resemblance to that of Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, the candidate replied: "Lincoln? Who cares! He's a loser. He went and got himself shot."
