Thursday, August 26, 2010

Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln (November 19, 1863)


Fourscore 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 battlefield 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot 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.

10 comments:

  1. Ema,

    Congratulations on your nice-looking blog!

    Really glad that you took the leap to develop a platform from which to express your ideas.

    The article on Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is good. Lincoln, the first Republican president and Great Emancipator of the scourge of slavery represented the Republican party and America well.

    Good luck with your blog. I will be stopping by regularly.

    Sincerely,

    RH

    p.s. Isn't freedom great?!!!

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  2. .


    Mr Lincoln would not be any more welcomed in the today's Republicant Party than the good Jewish rabbi Jesus Christ would be welcomed in today's "christain" churches or Dr. Martin Luther King would be welcomed at the Washington D.C.'s becker-head fest.

    Ema Nymton

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  3. Ema,

    Please post some more...it's good for the soul.

    And I'm not sand-bagging here, sitting here waiting to assault you. I am truly interested in reading what flows through your fingers, through the keyboard and on to the infinite world of digital media.

    Again, I am very happy for you that you have started your own blog, because it is a bigger step than many might think. And it is bigger than any past or present issues between us on my blog, for this is YOURS. And I respect having decided to own a blog. :)

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  4. Mr Lincoln would not be any more welcomed in the today's Republicant Party than the good Jewish rabbi Jesus Christ would be welcomed in today's "christain" churches or Dr. Martin Luther King would be welcomed at the Washington D.C.'s becker-head fest.

    Ah Ema, when are you going to substitute actual thought for your far-left bumper sticker slogans?

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  5. “But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination— ‘that government of the people, by the people, for the people,’ should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue.

    “The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves. What was the practical effect of the battle of Gettysburg? What else than the destruction of the old sovereignty of the States, i.e., of the people of the States? The Confederates went into battle free; they came out with their freedom subject to the supervision and veto of the rest of the country—and for nearly twenty years that veto was so effective that they enjoyed scarcely more liberty, in the political sense, than so many convicts in the penitentiary.” — Journalist H.L. Mencken, From “Five Men at Random,” “Prejudices: Third Series,” 1922, pp. 171-76: First printed, in part, in the “Smart Set,” May, 1920, p. 141

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  6. Stogie,

    Since the Rebs were conspicuously unconcerned about the slaves' 'self-determination', or their right to govern themselves, well I guess someone had to, eh?

    I see the hypocrisy of the old south still hasn't died.

    It's time, don't ya think?

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  7. Slavery aside, the confederate states fought for, and to preserve the concept of "states rights".

    Which is a very defensible concept on philosophical, ethical, and moral grounds.

    It is extremely unfortunate slavery was the issue around which the concept of "states rights" wrapped itself.

    Stogie I believe was addressing the issue of "sates rights" and self determination on philosophical, ethical, and moral grounds absent the issue of slavery. At least one hopes so.

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  8. Rational: Sorry, no 'slavery aside' moments allowed. The context was the context. Had there not been slavery, the south would not have had to pretend that they were seceding because of 'States Rights'. I've heard such justification attempts on more than once occasion, but they always fall quite pitifully short. And the Union Army would not have had to go down there and spank them if they had not insisted on continuing to entrap the bodies and wills of millions of innocent people who had no choice in the matter.

    Yes, I understand the States Rights argument. And it is an issue. It just wasn't the real issue in the Civil War or Gettysburg, it was a smokescreen for the Reb to feel better about himself so he continue to deny his reprehensible behavior.

    The Southern plantation owner would rather lose his son at Gettysburg, his other son at Antietam, his brother at Manassas and his home on Sherman's March than give up his slaves.

    They showed no mercy so they got no mercy.

    So Gettysburg, which my own family fought in for the Union, is as sad of a place as there is on this continent, save my own son's grave site. Especially since it all could have been prevented but for the Southern man's pride.

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  9. Lincoln was a rich railroad lawyer who has benefited from the most thorough reputational whitewash in American history. How does a guy who had ZERO regard for blacks (he expressed the thought that freed blacks should be shipped back to Africa) become worshipped as the Great Emancipator? His determination that the South would remain under the yoke of the union (and he made this clear in a letter to Horace Greenly) extended to a willingness to slaughter nearly three quarters of a million of his countrymen. Ole lying Abe is a hero in the “land of the free” even though he suspended the constitution and imprisoned anyone who disagreed with him (up to as many as 13,000). What Lincoln gave America was government BY government, FOR government, OF government, all the while wiping his yakee ass with the very constitution he swore to defend and protect! So please cease the mewling about what a great man he was. There would have been no War of Northern Agression if Lincoln had taken his oath seriously.

    And Righthooks, I wonder if you know that the entire slave trade through the middle passage was owned and facilited by YANKEE shipping companies. There would have been no slavery to make war over if greedy yankees had found some other way to make money!

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  10. .

    Thank you for your simple, simplistic, silly, and sallow comments. I am sure you benefit from living in the land of the free and the home of the brave. But if it is not good enough for you ...

    The door of USA is always open for you to leave and take your beloved gen 4 Glock 23 with you.


    Ema Nymton
    ~@:o?
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