Today marks the 150th
anniversary of the address that President Abraham Lincoln gave at Gettysburg on
November 19, 1863. Only a few days after
the Battle of Gettysburg, plans were made to establish and dedicate the first
military cemetery. Apparently, David
Wills of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was tasked with finding a speaker. He chose Edward Everett, the former president
of Harvard University, to give the main address. After Everett had agreed to speak, Wills
asked the President of the United States to “give a few appropriate remarks.”
Everett spoke from memory for
two hours and eight minutes about the history of the battle. As he spoke on and on, the crowd grew
restless. Finally, he was quiet, and
Lincoln stepped forward. His speech was
short and to the point. He spoke for
less than three minutes, and his talk consisted of 272 words. His speech was a handful of lines with
carefully chosen words, and it quickly spread through the media.
President Lincoln spoke his
words slowly and meaningfully. Please
read the following address slowly in order to have the appropriate appreciation
for his words. President Lincoln wrote
and spoke his words for an important purpose, the survival of our nation. His words meant something to him. What do they mean to you and me?
“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 battlefield 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 or devotion – that we here highly resolve that these
dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, 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.”
The Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell called
Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg “the greatest speech in American history and
reminded us that “Lincoln urged the fractured nation to dedicate itself to the
`unfinished work’ of the battle. In only
10 sentences – 272 words in all – he made clear the far-reaching implications
of the Civil War: `that government of
the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.’
The Morning Bell continued their article by
reminding readers that the Progressive movement emerged in America in the late
19th century and likened the Progressives of that time to the
liberals of our day in their “paradoxical relationship to democracy.”
“On the one hand, they
championed democratic reforms, like the referendum, the ballot initiative, and
the direct election of Senators (liberal today favor the popular election of
the President).
“On the other hand, the
Progressives -- again like their liberal heirs – harbored a deep-seated
distrust of the unwashed masses.”
Liberals today try to convince
Americans that everything they do is “for the people” because the people are
not smart enough to choose their own food, light bulbs, or health care. “Liberalism has in effect redefined democracy
along paternalistic lines: enacting,
through whatever means necessary, what the people would vote for – if only they were enlightened enough to know what’s
best for them.
“This, of course, is not
democracy…. Simply claiming to be for the people does not make a
government democratic. As Lincoln taught
us in his Gettysburg Address, it must also be of and by these people.”
Our nation is now greatly
divided over many issues; one of those issues is race. Barack Obama campaigned on being a person who
could unite our nation; instead he has done more to divide us and make matters
worse in almost every area of our nation.
Even though Mr. Obama read a version of the Gettysburg Address today, he
is a far different President than was Abraham Lincoln. If we want to have a government of the people, by the people, and for the
people, we must look to leaders like Abraham Lincoln and not Barack Obama.
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