For all of us Americans, the Fourth of July, our independence day is celebrated with fireworks, barbeque, beer, and friends. We frolic about enjoying each others company. It hasn’t always been this way and a nation awake and aware has the best chance of not repeating history.
During wartime, presidential speeches are used as a way to foster patriotism, support and rally the country toward a common goal. As a history enthusiast, I thought it was interesting to hear read the words of President Abraham Lincoln from a speech he gave on July 4, 1861, just shortly after the US Civil war had begun.
All these years later, the second question he had, remains to be dimly lit in the background even still today. While I am confident that it won’t be questioned fully, am a proud American, I do think it is smart to listen carefully and protect that which he raises.
“This is essentially a people’s contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. … Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled — the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains — its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.”