A New Birth of Freedom

“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
Gettysburg, PA

Ironically, President Lincoln was not actually the featured speaker at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg.  He was only asked to attend the ceremony seventeen days before the event.  He followed a more than 2 hour oration by Edward Everett with this 2 minute speech that is now recognized as one of the most powerful in American history.

The battle of Gettysburg ended on July 3, 1863 (144 years ago today) with the blood-soaked ground holding more than 7,500 Union and Confederate soldiers who gave the “full measure of devotion” for their respective understandings of freedom. At least 4,700 of those were Confederate soldiers who fought, in part, for the “right” to hold other human beings as possessions.

Some say that Americans have no right to speak to the world on human rights, given some of the atrocities in our own history.  I say, who better to tell the tale of each human’s value than those who have walked through the consequences of our own devaluing?  We can not change the past, but we can not live in it either.  Our voices can not be bound by it.  We can acknowledge it, take responsibility for it, learn from it, and move forward from it.  And, we must share the consequences of it.

“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work…”