"On This Date... November 19th 1863"

It was on this date in 1863, that President Abraham Lincoln gave in 2 minutes what is widely acknowledged to be the finest oration ever given in American history...  


"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."

Mr. Lincoln gave this speech at the dedication of the Soldier's National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which months earlier had been the scene of a great and decisive battle, the carnage of which America would never again know.  In this hallowed speech, President Lincoln eloquently declared and reaffirmed the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence while further proclaiming a "a new birth of freedom" and democracy that would preserve the war torn nation to stand as a beacon of freedom to the world. 

Everyday, I witness us move ever closer to the ideals he proclaimed not only to his own war weary nation, but also to her millions of yet unborn citizens who in future generations would yearn to be free.  I feel fortunate to have been born at a time when those yearnings are finally being answered for me and those like me by the resounding trump of freedom's call.  

"Fear Eats the Soul"