PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT: November 19, 1863, The Gettysburg Address, Speech From the Burial Ground

[ShaneGR]

This speech is as important to our country as it was back then. Take a moment to read it and think about what it means to you today. Here is the speech Lincoln gave, I will follow it with two paragraphs of a speech given before Lincoln took the stage that day by Edward Everett. He asked repeatedly for prayer and the Marine Corp band played several times during his speech. He was well received. Little known fact, Everett spoke nonstop for two hours before Lincoln took the stage.

Lincoln said:

November 19, 1863

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.







EVERETT'S TWO LESS THAN FAMOUS QUOTES DURING HIS TWO HOUR SPEECH BEFORE LINCOLN TOOK THE STAGE:








Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and Nature. But the duty to which you have called me must be performed; — grant me, I pray you, your indulgence and your sympathy.

But they, I am sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr-heroes, that wheresoever throughout the civilized world the accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common country, there will be no brighter page than that which relates the Battles of Gettysburg.






Lincoln was wrong, what was done then will always be remembered.

[Bicoastal]

1. A word about Edward Everett--turns out Obama owes him one.

According to Wikipedia, Mr. Everett was president of Harvard in addition to being a Representative and Senator from Massachusetts. In fact, his term as University President coincided with Harvard admitting its first black student, sometime between 1846 and 1849.

This forward-looking act caused no shortage of controversy, but apparently Evertt stood up for tearing down academic segregation. He said (in reference to the student) "If this boy passes the examinations he will be admitted and if the white students choose to withdraw, all the income of the college will be devoted to his education."

He may not have been the world's best orator, but he seems to have been a genuinely decent guy. Lincoln may be Barack Obama's inspiration, but Everett was one who made it possible for him to get his law degree a century later.

[aquart]

2. "All the income of the college will be devoted to his education"

Such a simple and beautifully matter-of-fact act of courage.

[malaise]

3. I prefer this quote from his 1861 Inaugural Address

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

Send it to Huckabee and the Fundies urgently