Almost one hundred and fifty four years ago, as Abraham Lincoln approached the cataclysmic rending of our nation over a struggle for other freedoms, a rending that would take his own life and the lives of hundreds of thousands of others, he wrote these words: "It can not have failed to strike you that these men ask for just... the same thing -- fairness, and fairness only. This so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have."

The men and women, and the children too, whose voices join in noble harmony with plaintiffs today, also ask for fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as it is in this Court's power, they and all others shall have.