Echoes of war

In honour of the sesquicentennial of the Gettysburg Address, and also of our visit to that famous site in this auspicious year, I want to tell you about a movement that is afoot to encourage people of all ages to memorize, study, and apply the 272 words that were spoken by Abraham Lincoln on November 19th, 1863. You can go here to read more about it.

Meanwhile, here it is, complete with appropriate photos taken one day before the government shutdown.

If that's not ironic, I don't know what is.

 

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 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, 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.

Interestingly, Lincoln was not the big draw for the crowd at the cemetery dedication; it was Edward Everett, one of the time's great orators. He spoke for two hours, recalling other civil wars from the history books, and was much lauded. Lincoln himself thought that his words would be of "little note, nor long remembered", yet today, his two-minute speech lives on as one of the greatest speeches of his career.

And I challenge you to memorize it by the end of October. 

Feel free to leave me a comment when you complete the challenge.