THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

The 1861-1865 American Civil War between the North and South was a struggle between two different ways of life, between the agricultural South and the industrialized North. Slavery was the disturbing issue of our Nation from the time of the Revolutionary War. George Washington willed that his slaves would be freed, cared for, and the young educated upon the death of his wife. Thomas Jefferson, though he owned slaves, was deeply troubled by slavery: he sketched out a plan to free all slaves born after 1800, and in 1784 he submitted a bill to Congress prohibiting slavery in all Western territories, a bill which failed by a single vote. The cause of the War was the dispute between the authority of the Federal Union versus State Rights. After all, slavery still existed in four Union states when the Civil War began - Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, and even the District of Columbia!

Following the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress saw the need for a Confederacy of the States and established a central authority known as the Articles of Confederation, which was drafted on November 15, 1777, and was not ratified by all the States until March 1, 1781. The Congress of the Confederation operated the United States government from March 1, 1781 until March 4, 1789. The Continental Congress was careful to preserve the independence, rights, and privileges of the States, as there was overall fear of a powerful central government. Ever since the tyranny of the British government, there had always existed a tension between State Rights and the power of the Federal Government. The U. S. Constitution was approved on September 17, 1787, and ratification came with an understanding that a Bill of Rights would be approved to protect the rights of American citizens.

As is true of the human condition, emotion overruled reason in the end. The Civil War was an inconceivable tragedy for our nation, and the bloodiest war to date for the USA. The bitter election of 1860 with the nomination of Abraham Lincoln as President led directly to the dissolution of the Union. Referring to the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, the State of South Carolina was the first to secede from the Union on December 20, 1860 under then President James Buchanan. South Carolina was soon joined by 6 other states by February 1, 1861 - Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The Southern States met in Montgomery, Alabama and on February 8, 1861 formed the Confederate States of America, and subsequently elected Jefferson Davis President of the Confederacy. President Lincoln assumed office March 4, 1861. As President, he saw his duty to preserve and protect the Union. Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter, under the direction of President Lincoln, refused to surrender Federal Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The Confederacy opened fire on April 12, 1861 on Fort Sumter, and Major Anderson surrendered the following day. When President Lincoln called for 75,000 troops, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the Confederacy.

The good that came out of the Civil War was the ending of African-American slavery. In keeping with the Declaration of Independence, all human beings have certain God-given rights, among them Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

In a tribute to the 52,000 Americans that had been killed, injured or lost in the 3-day battle of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln in his 1863 Gettysburg Address declared that
"this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom."

The Thirteenth through Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution were added after the Civil War to end slavery (1865), to provide equal protection to all that were defined as citizens (1868), and to grant the vote to former slaves (1870).

The belief and expression "Nation under God" later became part of our Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America.


THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

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 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.

November 19, 1863




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