These words were spoken 160 years ago, but the sentiments are as alive in our hearts today as they must have been in his, on that late fall day in southern Pennsylvania:

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 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 here 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.

In only one aspect did Mr. Lincoln not fully comprehend the enormousness of the sacrifice of these soldiers, and his leadership in the Great War.  The world has indeed noted, and stands in sacred awe, of the power and the prosperity that only liberty can beget and nurture.

Our nation has inspired peoples around the globe to seek that same new birth of freedom for themselves.  We should be proud, and never cease in our efforts, stained as they are with the blood of the fallen, to remain that shining city on a hill.

We as a nation have endured until now and will endure long past our own lives.  So we dedicate ourselves anew, and every day, to the unfinished work of building a nation wholly dedicated to preserving life, to ensuring liberty, and to affording the freedom to pursue happiness.

We the People too are engaged in a great civil war, being fought in the courtrooms, the classrooms, and the changing rooms of our country.  Totalitarian tyrants in the midst of us are struggling to replace our beloved liberty and equality with authoritarian equity.  We will fight, and we will win.  On this day of our remembrance, and gratitude, we rededicate our own lives to the liberty and betterment of all.

Anony Mee is the nom de blog of a retired public servant.

Image: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.