LAD #13: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Lincoln invoked the principles of human equality that are so famous because of the Declaration of Independence and redefined the Civil War as a struggle not only for the Union, but as "a new birth of freedom" that would bring equality to all of its citizens. Beginning with phrase, "Four score and seven years ago," Lincoln referred to the events of the American Revolution and described the ceremony at Gettysburg as an opportunity not only to dedicate the grounds of a cemetery, but also to honor the living in the struggle to make sure that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Lincoln used the word "nation" five times, but never the word "union," which refers to the North. This restored the nation significantly, not a union of individual states, was extremely important. Lincoln's text referred to the year 1776 and the American Revolutionary War, and included the famous words of the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal". Lincoln did not say anything about the 1789 Constitution, which recognized slavery in the "three-fifths compromise," and he avoided using the word "slavery". He also did not announce anything about the nullification of states' rights in the antebellum period.