“Four score and seven years ago our Fathers brought forth of this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
This infamous opening line from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is repeated in elementary civics classes across the country and has been spoken by Hollywood actors for generations. Though this line has become a permanent fixture in American history, Americans have forgotten the message it was sending.
The Gettysburg Address was given on November 19, 1863 on the famed battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Though it is short in length, its significance is resounding. Lincoln was reminding the feuding country that freedom and equality were the principles at the heart of the land they were fighting over. He said, our country is “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” At the time, the Union troops were carrying out that message, fighting for the freedom of slaves and trying to keep whole the country the founding fathers fought so hard to create.
It is almost exactly 146 years to the day that Lincoln spoke those inspired words, but today they fall on deaf ears. During the Civil War, the country was hungry for a reminder of what it was fighting for to keep together. In the 1960s, when Martin Luther King Jr. reiterated these words on the steps of the Lincoln memorial in Washington D.C., he was calling for the guarantee of equal rights. Now, however, we take freedom and equality for granted. Some argue we have not reached a free and equal society, but generally speaking, America has fulfilled its duty to keep its people free.
The significance of the Gettysburg Address is no longer relevant to the majority of Americans, who have grown up in a democratic government that is responsive to the people’s voice. Lincoln spoke of America as a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. John Marshall, arguably the most famous-definitely the most important-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court wrote similar words in his opinion in Marbury vs. Madison (1803), in which he describes the government as “emphatically and truly a government of the people…its powers are granted by them and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit.” For over 200 years in America, the government has protected and made prosperous its people. This is not something that can be said for all countries in the world.
While in Washington D.C. with the SMU Hilltop on the Hill group, I was reminded why I should be thankful to be an American. A few years ago, CCPA Professor Benjamin Voth was asked to teach Holocaust survivors public speaking. Professor Voth spoke to us of memories from his experience. He gave the survivors famous speeches to read aloud, and he gave the Gettysburg address to a Polish survivor. As she slowly read Lincoln’s words in her thick polish accent, she became emotional, adding an “Amen!” at the end. Then she turned to Professor Voth and explained that we are lucky to live in a country where such a speech can be given. I will never forget that moment, for I have always taken my freedom for granted. I believe that all Americans need to be reminded why our country is so great. America will never cease to fight for our freedoms. The Supreme Court is a battlefield for freedoms and America is currently fighting to protect us in the Middle East.
This Thanksgiving, Americans should be thankful our country is willing to fight for us, to protect us at all costs and from any enemy whether it be a law or organization of hate. And so we must remember Lincoln’s words and support America in its never-ending battle to maintain freedom.
“It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work for which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on 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 shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Claire Sanderson is a junior CCPA and Political Science double major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].
