I appreciate your reflection on the Gettysburg Address, and your timeliness in doing so. Before reading your article, I didn't have a category for the Address; it just was. But I agree: it is, as you argue, our national credo. Thank you.

An excellent point, Gerard, and eloquently stated.

Perfect.

I have a variant of that photo on the site I maintain:

http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=764

I agree with the Address being our credo -- Absolutely.

Incidentally, you mentioned the Declaration as well, and it should be pointed out that Lincoln was a firm believer that the Declaration was as important a document as the Constitution.

http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=734

The majority of our modern political class doesn't think so, and we are at peril because of that. Justice Kagan is dismissive of Natural Rights, and said so, for instance.

In previous posts here I have been against the idea of a Constitutional Convention, but on reflection, and if it is an Article V convention, I think that if there be just one Amendment, it should be one that enshrines the Declaration of Independence and its sentiments in the Constitution itself. The founders considered such sentiments "self-evident," and saw no need to include "Consent of the Governed" or "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" in the Constitution itself. They hadn't figured on the literalist, mendacious, ambulance-chaser mentality of the current crop of idiots who deign to "rule" us.

From the files of The War of Northern Aggression--

Government of the people, by the people, and for the people was a description of what was passing, not what would endure. We entered the war as citizens of different states and emerged as subjects of one, easy prey for a ruling class. Governments that had been supported by the people and so controlled by the people became government that supported the people and so controlled them. It is altogether fitting and proper that a casino at Gettysburg should pay for this arrangement. Ka-ching.

That really is the only confirmed photograph of Lincoln? I could swear I saw more...maybe they were sketches or artist impressions...?

There is no need to amend the Constitution to enshrine the principles of the Declaration of Independence in the Law of the Land.

I can not find the exact citation right now, but during the 1870s, an Act of Congress incorporated the Declaration of Independence as basic law for the United States.

I hope some astute reader here can find the reference.

Punditarian:

An obscure act of Congress from the 1870s?

Let's dig it up, fine, but you missed my point when you say, "there's no need, etc . . ."

The founders saw "no need" either with their "self-evident" mantra, which is no longer self-evident and hasn't been for a century. Nowadays it has to be spelled out, and must go in the Constitution.

Don Rodrigo,

Maybe so. The first New York State Constitution of 1777, which declared New York's independence from the United Kingdom, included the entire text of the Declaration. The current version no longer does so, but now begins: "We The People of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our Freedom, in order to secure its blessings, DO ESTABLISH THIS CONSTITUTION."

"all men are created equal."

Wrong. Obviously and demonstrably wrong. And any political system that assumes it is destined to fail, sooner or later.

Thank you for this excellent, inspiring post.

"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."

Gettysburg should be on everyone's bucket list. It is one one my personal cathedral's. If you haven't gotten there yet, get there before the casino's arrive.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

So far removed from our Bumbler-in-Chief, who believes every uh, um, cough, and fart should be treated as worthy of stone and exaltation by the masses.