Are we fulfilling Lincoln's challenge in the Gettysburg Address?
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 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.
Are we fulfilling this challenge? If so, in what respect? If not, where did we mess up? What should change as we move forward?
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9 Answers
Great question. Back then, the struggle was one of white supremacy, landowner rights over the rights of others, male dominance… Not much has changed in the 150 years but the names of the players. Back then, it was Republicans fighting for equality.
Um, what excactly was he asking? It sounds like he just wants everyone to make sure this country that people fought and died for, remains intact.
If that is what he’s saying, then we’re doing fine.
I always had problems understanding the wording of this address.
We are living as a single nation without even a thought of splitting apart. That is the ideal to which they gave their lives.
”...dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…”
I now find myself in a country where money is considered speech, and that I therefore have far less speech than many others. I also find that corporations somehow crashed the equality party.
I don’t actually think that Lincoln had corporations in mind as “the people” when saying “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”.
Lincoln knew that government of the people, by the people, for the people was hard won and easily lost. How easily lost can be seen today as before our eyes political power passes into the hands of the corporation. We betray ourselves and as Lincoln put it we also betray the men who consecrated the ground we stand upon.
Slavery is no longer legal and the north and south are united. Mission completed.
@marinelife I disagree. There is an active movement in this country to break up the Union and while waiting for that a striving to not allow Federal protection of rights. There are governors of states that would like to be independent of Federal Jurisdiction in many areas. The union has not been under such threat in almost 150 years.
LINCOLN
“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.”
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