On this day, November 19, 1863, at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, President Abraham Lincoln made a 2-minute speech that ended with his hope “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.”
Few words are more memorized.
Few words ring truer to the American people.
This is what we want.
This is who we are.
This is what we want for ourselves and our children, now, and for generations to come.
The words were not entirely original.
They came from the prologue of one of the earliest translations of the Bible into the English language by theologian John Wycliffe:
“This Bible is for the government of the people, for the people and by the people.”
The words were not new. They were first penned in 1384.
To some degree, it is these ancient words that underpin the preamble to the U.S. Constitution:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Next time someone asks you if you are a Democratic Socialist, you tell them "you bet'cha."
Same as Lincoln.
Same as the first guy to translate the Bible into English.
Same as that Eisenhower fellow.
American.
To the bone.
2 comments:
I couldn't check any of the reactions available, because I don't find this post to be "funny," "interesting," or "cool." But I do find it to be absolutely true, and the more of us Americans that see it that way, the better.
With all due respect, pr is something American politics has always been really, really good at. Practicing what you preach is a different matter alltogether.
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