Beautifully rendered ... such a pleasure to read. Thank you. ~D
Posted by Deann at February 12, 2013 6:03 AMIn my advancing age, I increasingly read the Address as the greatest and most influential rhetoric written since Common Sense. The work of the War Between the States was not to preserve the Union. Lincoln could have done that without war. The war was to end slavery in the union. It was not to create equality. "-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-" was a cause finished in 1865. The Union could not have fielded a single division to fight over equality, and Lincoln knew it better than anyone.The most unfortunate legacy of the War of Northern Aggression is the permanent war of equality.
"We have learned to do a great many clever things. Our next great task will be to learn to not do them."-
Edmund Burke
Except, of course that the South was fighting for government of the people , not government by Washington DC.
Posted by Bill Jones at February 12, 2013 12:27 PMPost a comment
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged