Abraham Lincoln's dying message to Americans

"Dear citizens, I know that I am not well. Amid this evening at Ford’s Theatre, my body has borne within it an abominable manifestation of political strife, and I feel my senses beginning to take leave. As the light departs my corporeal form, yearning to move on to destinations unknown, I have but one final request.

I beg of you, please commemorate my birthday with mattress sales. Downy, tufted, even memory foam: none shall be exempt from the wholesale slashing of prices. Reserve for this great endeavor a day—nay, an entire weekend, for only a weekend would suffice for the monumental scale of these savings. Throughout our fair land, postboxes spanning as far as the stately eagle soars shall be papered with announcements, each a herald to the approaching cavalry of discount mattresses.

When this grand republic was first conceived, our Founders proffered a unique conception: that every man, no matter his creed, race, or sleep number, would in equal terms be free in the pursuit of happiness. Though we have not often lived up to these ideals in practice, I implore one further leap toward them—with a bedroom blowout bonanza the likes of which no man has ever seen.

It is true that during my tenure war has tested our national resolve, pitting brother against brother in this trying time. But by the hand of providence, even the most quarrelsome of kin shall come together against our common enemy: nighttime sweating. Why merely lay down arms when there also exists occasion to lay down upon moisture-wicking fabric with pressure point relief?..."

Continued at McSweeney's.