SHALL NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH
“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 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.” – – Abraham Lincoln – The Gettysburg Address
The eloquent words of Lincoln were, of course, spoken on the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania during America’s Civil War. Yet one cannot help but think Lincoln could stand before us and repeat his words today. All that America is, all that she is loved for, the shining hope that America represents to the people of planet Earth, is once again under great threat. And once again the threat is internal.
America was not loved for its military might, it was not loved because of some “superpower” “exceptionalism.” There are no “exceptional” people, no “special children of God.” America was loved because it proved the downtrodden, the poor, the persecuted, the human spirit of the “old country” could overcome the gross inequality and attendant injustices that for centuries had kept the people of Europe, the people of Asia, the people of the world, enslaved.
Donald Trump is a symptom, not a cause. He is the posterchild for the sickness, the evil, of gross inequality that now infects America. He is the embodiment of 40 years of deliberate and methodical transfer of wealth upward by the actions of both political parties. Donald Trump is living proof that the cancer of the “old country” now controls the new. The rule of the rich ruthlessly dividing and enslaving the people of America is every bit as great a threat as was the Civil War. The “shining hope” is dying. Yet there is hope.
We all walk on hallowed ground. We all owe a deep debt of gratitude to those who have gone before. We all owe a future to those who will follow. Let us all remember the struggles of our parents and grandparents and great grandparents. Let us remember all they sought to bequeath to us. Let us remember the words of Lincoln:
“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.”