Nick Stephens

The Ideals of the Gettysburg Address

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought fourth on this continent, a new

nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created

equal.” This is one of my favorite parts of the Gettysburg Address It speaks about how

when facing unfair and unjustifiable treatment by a super power of that time who decided

to fight, to strive for freedom, justice, and equality to make possible a dream that

numerous countries of the world strive and thirst for a dream of freedom. Listed in one

of the most important documents of the French it states that “So that one man may live

without fear of another.” That is part of the American Dream: the dream of freedom,

equality, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. President Abraham Lincoln knew

this as well if not better than anyone else. He realized that as stated, “Now we are

engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that or any nation so conceived and so

dedicated, can long and endure.” President Lincoln knew that this battle was fought

unflaggingly for the preservation of those rights we enjoy. The fighting was a result of a

difference of opinion on how those rights should be upheld. Tens of thousands gave their

lives on those fields. President Lincoln knew that there was nothing available to compare

to how those men consecrated that ground with their lives. They fought till their dying

breath with freedom and liberty in their hearts, though they had differing opinions upon

that freedom and liberty. Lincoln knew what needed to be done next. He said, “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 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.”

Lincoln recognized that these freedoms must be won again so all those brave men didn’t

die in vain. So that this great nation “America the Beautiful” should not disappear from

this earth. Those freedoms enjoyed must be won again so that the dreams of freedom,

justice, equality, liberty, and the right to the pursuit of happiness may stand strong waving

proud and high over the world: the red, white, and blue.