The Dooryard

The Gettysburg Address

In my wallet I keep a copy of the Gettysburg Address, delivered by President Abraham Lincoln on Nov. 19, 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, several months after the Battle of Gettysburg. That battle and the various campaigns aroung Gettysburg, Pa., was the bloodiest time of the war, and the North's victory there signaled the turning point in the war.

I post it here before the jump in the hopes that you will read it. The legacy of that battle, and these humble words uttered there, are a very real part of why Americans are celebrating this weekend. It is quite moving.

"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 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 can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not 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."

Integrity

Why can't people just do what they said they were going to do? I have, since graduating from college, put a strong emphasis on my personal integrity. If I say I'm going to be somewhere at 6pm, that's when I'm going to be somewhere. If I say I'm going to do something, then it will be done.

So many people I know have no integrity. They cancel plans minutes before getting together, show up 20-30 minutes late to dinner, or come up with a million excuses for why they just didn't do what they said they were going to do.

Leave Lincoln alone

Abraham Lincoln is quite possibly my favorite figure from history. His accomplishments and writings are unparalleled in how they connect with me (Emerson's writings are dead-on, but what Lincoln did - mindblowing). So, it should be with great joy that I am seeing more and more rumors now that he was gay. Yet, I am somehow disheartened by all the recent talk.