Tuesday, November 19, 2013

"Four Score and seven years ago" The 150th anniversary of 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."

Abraham Lincoln
November 19th, 1863 (http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm)

#somethingtothinkabout

Lincoln ushered in the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, as a compassionate and courageous man, not as a Republican or Democrat, though he was a Republican and proud of his station, but as an American of Americans, a man called by God to fight for others, for their freedom, for their lives and for their equal rights.

Might you ask yourself these questions?
  • Would Lincoln have fought for the Emancipation of Innocent Men locked away in our nations prisons?
  • In the case of guilty men on death row, would Lincoln have fought for the Proclamation of Life?
  • In the case of unborn children, would Lincoln have fought for the Emancipation of Children in Their Womb?
  • Would Lincoln have considered Innocent Americans, Guilty Americans, Unborn Americans deserving of equal rights, deserving of 13th Amendment rights?
  • Yes
Lincoln was an extraordinary man and leader of men. We ought to follow his lead. He knew the nobility of blood, the value of life. We ought to know as well. 

"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."

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