Abraham Lincoln, What A Man!
A hard worker, a self-taught man; could never be called a quitter.
Abraham Lincoln never lost touch with the common people. Within a month of becoming our 16th President, the Civil War began, lasting four years, and with over a half million men dying between North and South. Millions of slaves became free. What a price to pay for the unity of a nation. Yet, five days following war's end, and surviving the Civil War, America remained the "United States" and "Honest Abe" was assassinated.
Let's rewind to a bit of Lincoln's history. On reading about Abraham Lincoln in a story related to his Gettysburg Address "perhaps the best summation in our nation's history of the meaning and price of freedom," I found it interesting that the words of the main speaker, who was not Lincoln, are not remembered.
The setting is the planned ceremony of the new national cemetery on Cemetery Hill, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863. About fifteen thousand people will be there to hear speakers honor the dead soldiers in their resting place. Edward Everett, teacher of Greek, president of Harvard and U.S. Secretary of State will speak for two hours, never using notes. Lincoln is asked to make a few remarks. Lincoln comes a day earlier to work on his speech.
On this memorable occasion, following Everett, the President stood for an instant, waiting for the cheers to cease, slowly adjusted his glasses and took from his pocket what seemed to be a piece of ordinary paper. He quietly unfolded it and began to speak.
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 didicate 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.
The President does not mention North or South; he mentions no names at all. He means to transcent this time and place. His listeners are here to mourn their sons and their country. Lincoln takes them back to the founding moment of the Declaration of Independence, making that document the setting of the moral tone for the future (that this nation, under God,shall have a new birth of freedom). The Gettysburg Address will take its place with the founding documents as an expression of the nation's purpose.
American History has been corrupted by those in the teaching profession. Our History needs a new birth, being revived for all to know. For example, this lesson ought to show that before the Gettysburg Address by Lincoln, the United States was a plural noun; afterward, we became singular. The United States, one nation, under God, indivisible. If you know, remember. If you don't know, learn.
Today we seem to have forgotten those precious times in our history that
we are obliged to remember. By learning many will discover the meaning of Country and unity, and not be so eager or naive to surrender America to those who would undermine and think nothing about all those countless Americans who have fought and died for our continued freedom. Be not so ready to believe that newcomers to this country readily understand what price and by whom this country owes its hard-won, historical freedom. "Honest Abe" was an example for all subsequent presidents. Many followed his beliefs and dedication to his office, many didn't. Abraham Lincoln deserves never to be forgotten.
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