Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that thisnation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
~~Abraham Lincoln
Imagine those great words, spoken to the people, were actually composed by the speaker himself. I wonder if today's leaders could do the same?
(c) 2008-2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines
2 comments:
If you missed the Gettysburg meeting, you can find Lincoln's PowerPoint at:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/gettysburg-address-november-19-1863/
I memorized the Gettysburg Address when I was a kid growing up in the public schools of Tennessee and assumed the things it said were true. That's when I was a child.
Looking back, from the perspective of having studied American history for more than sixty years, I realize how false Lincoln's speech really was. Dishonest Abe Lincoln was a master of political spin, whose words were the polar opposite of his deeds. Government of the people, by the people and for the people was exactly the thing he was trying to crush in his unconstitutional and brutal attack on the Confederate nation.
Lincoln's words are a mockery when one considers that he held 13,000 northern political prisoners, without trial or due process of law - just because they disagreed with his illegal war.
Famous American writer H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), said of the Gettysburg Address: “The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination - that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.”
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