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.
The Gettysburg Address was less than 275 words long. Lincoln was not the primary speaker at the dedication of cemetery, but his words are the ones we remember. In four short paragraphs taking less than three minutes to speak, Lincoln summed up the Civil War. He did not split the dead into right and wrong, or left and right, or Confederate and Yankee. He spoke of all the men who gave their lives fighting for liberty, because every single one of them did. Their methods for attaining liberty may have differed, but the end desires were fairly similar. The North “won” but more than that, the country won.
When we pull down Confederate statues instead of moving them to museums or gardens where their place in history can be fully explained, we are deleting the past. The people who do it are no better than the terrorists who are destroying historical monuments in Egypt and Syria and other places. We cannot lose sight of the past, because if we do, we’ll be doomed to repeat it.
In fact, the above words by Lincoln resonate especially poignantly today. Many (myself included) worry that civil war is coming back to this country. I have so many worries and concerns, and there’s little that I can do about any of them. It’s a feeling of extreme helplessness. So I’m listening to Lincoln, and repeating to myself, “…government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” I have to trust in that.