Memorial
Abraham Lincoln, speaking at Gettysburg:
Fourscore 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 battlefield 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.
Some things just can’t be improved on — unless maybe they’re read aloud by Johnny Cash.
Cheers and thanks for the link.
Can’t help but tear up hearing it.
Why, how coincidental (waving from bar, woman still waiting to be served)! I have Mr. Cash in right now….
He was wrong on one count. We do remember.
If someone had told him just before or after that it was one of the greatest speeches of all times, he would not have believed. That seems to be a recurring theme.
But surely anything can be improved with PowerPoint!
Also on point—possibly more so— is Lincoln’s Second Inaugurual:
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Memory
There have been many excellent things you should read (or which ought to be re-read) for Memorial Day this year. John of Castle Argghhh!!! has the tale of a young Lieutenant’s final homecoming in Memorial Day 2004. BlackFive notes Memorial…
We had to learn “The Gettysburg Address” by heart in grammar school and I still remember most of it. It made quite an impression because I was graduated from grammar school in 1948.
I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing Johnny Cash read it, but I’ll take care of that right now. Thanks.
Help. I can’t get any audio. MP3 is up on the desktop and it thinks it’s playing the Gettysburg Address, but I can’t hear a thing.
Anyone know how to fix this.
I’m sorry, but I’m unimpressed by a guy that claimed to be preserving the idea of liberty by killing and invading sovreign states and killing 600,000 people on both sides to force these states to remain under his control.
This is one of the most duplicitous and cynical speeches of all time.
And you, Mr Rentner, are a pompous ass.
Why Mike, that’s the best anti-Lincoln argument on a 6th grade level I’ve heard in a long time! A+ and a sticker for you!
Those of us who understand the Civil War will, in the meantime, reflect on the words of someone who is compelling and relevant.
Lincoln WAS A FASCIST! like you!
Improved? Perhaps not. But translated for a new target audience, yes.
I’m unimpressed with the sovereignity of states which see fit to recognize the ownership of some humans by other humans, and, please, spare the tiresome, fatuous, rhetoric as to how treating human beings as chattel was not the central issue;. as if the war would have been waged over tariff policy.
Don’t worry, Mike R — some of us got the joke.
*Chortle* Mike R. you reveal your cultural/geographical location quite well.