(A) We cannot dedicate, consecrate, or hallow the ground at the Soliders’ National Cemetery.
(B) Our fathers brought forth a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
(C) We must dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives to the nation.
(D) ** We must honor the dead by ensuring that this nation endures and has a new birth of freedom.
EXPLANATIONS BELOW
Concept note-1: -The main message of the Gettysburg Address is that ideals are worth dying for and that it is up to the living to carry on the work of those who died to protect ideals. The ideals of equality and freedom are the bedrock of the United States as a nation.
Concept note-2: -The stated purpose of Lincoln’s speech was to dedicate a plot of land that would become Soldier’s National Cemetery. However, Lincoln realized that he also had to inspire the people to continue the fight. Below is the text of the Gettysburg Address, interspersed with my thoughts on what made it so memorable.
Concept note-3: -In it, he invoked the principles of human equality contained in the Declaration of Independence and connected the sacrifices of the Civil War with the desire for “a new birth of freedom, ” as well as the all-important preservation of the Union created in 1776 and its ideal of self-government.
Concept note-4: -Lincoln described the Civil War as a struggle for “a new birth of freedom"–his vision for a nation that provides equality for all of its citizens, creates a unified nation no longer dominated by states’ rights, and defines democracy in terms of “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”