Dear Editor: We just watched Spielberg’s film “Lincoln” (again). I was struck by how close today’s tensions match those of the Civil War. It is a good moment, then, to be reminded of two famous speeches by President Lincoln; first, as follows, his Gettysburg address, which I copied from www.owleyes.com (cited in full below). Next is his 2nd Inaugural Address, which I’ll copy and send in another post. Lincoln knew that the foundational principles of our country embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were of supreme importance for everyone. His compassion, even for “the other side” is evident in this Address. Like a refrain from Coldplay, he prayed to “keep us together” and I do too.
Joan Sheski
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.
Abraham Lincoln November 19, 1863.
Five-known copies of the Gettysburg Address exist…The Bliss copy (sent to Colonel Alexander Bliss) is the best known and is widely accepted as the standard because Lincoln signed and dated this version and provided it with a title. It is also the version chosen for inscription at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.