The Gettysburg Address (revised)
Lincoln’s famous words offer a template for how we can face our current trials
Abraham Lincoln speaking at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863. (Illustration via Wikimedia/Library of Congress)
President Abraham Lincoln delivered his 272-word Gettysburg Address during the Civil War on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery near where 50,000 soldiers died four months earlier. This 272-word minimalist revision addresses the uncivil war we now face.
Twelve score and nine years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in an uncivil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. Each day we are met with a new battle in this war. We acknowledge the heavy price paid by generations that this nation might live in freedom. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this. We cannot rest until the principles of democracy, decency, and the Constitution are restored.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot venerate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow our great institutions while the president desecrates and dismantles them. The brave and wise who came before expected that we would add not detract from their unfinished work. The world may little note, nor long remember the falsehood and cruelties now spoken and texted, but it will never forget the lasting damage being done here.
It is for us the living, who still believe in democracy to be dedicated to advancing this unfinished work. We must take increased devotion to this noble cause for which so many have given their last full measure of devotion. Only by doing so can we be resolved that they did not do so in vain.
Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom of Speech.” (US National Archives and Records Administration
Let it be our solemn request that this nation, under God, shall preserve the freedom so dearly won, free from hatred and autocratic ruin; and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
David E. Stein is an entrepreneur and activist living in Boston.
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