Have we learned anything in the last 150 years? Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was given one year after the famed battle, in the middle of the Civil War, to dedicate the battlefield as a cemetery. The speech lasted a mere 2 minutes. It was preceded by a speech from Edward Everett that lasted an agonizing 2 hours. He was impressed by Lincoln’s speech and asked for a copy. This is the text from that copy of the Gettysburg address:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon 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 here 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.
Variations of the Gettysburg Address can be seen here. If you fancy a visit to the Gettysburg site to feel the weight of Lincoln’s words and the impact of what the battlefield can show you visually and physically, visit the National Parks Service website to plan a trip. If you feel like your congressman/woman is doing their job, go on with your day; if not, please take a moment to tell your congressman/woman what you think a government of the people, by the people, for the people should look like and what it should be doing.
