America needs more 'Lincolnites,' or citizens who emulate Abraham Lincoln's benevolence
One hundred and sixty-one years ago, Americans were slaughtering each other. The Battle of Gettysburg — one of the most consequential battles of the deadliest war in American history—began on July 1, 1863. By July 4, the Confederates were retreating, and 51,000 more Americans were dead, wounded, or missing.
It was the young nation’s 87th birthday.
President Abraham Lincoln was well-aware of the irony. He famously began his legendary Gettysburg Address, which he delivered at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, by harkening back to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“Four score and seven years” before, the Founding Fathers had “brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Lincoln also knew just how vulnerable the country was: “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
Contrast Lincoln's address with the speech by the Confederacy's VP
Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg have long been memorialized; so much so that we can lose sight of the context in which they were spoken. The Gettysburg Address powerfully and succinctly summarized the great ideals of the American experiment. But Lincoln’s charge came at a time when both the validity of those ideals and the continued existence of the Union seemed far from obvious.
Contrast Lincoln with Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens. In March of 1861, Stephens lamented the “prevailing ideas” of the American founding; namely the principle, embedded in the Declaration, that all people are created with equal dignity and value.
He asserted that “the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution [of slavery] would be evanescent and pass away.”
Stephens disagreed: “Those ideas...were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races...Our new [Confederate] government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.”
America is the greatest country in the world, but keeping freedom alive requires action
Stephens gave his hateful speech just days after Lincoln was inaugurated on the steps of the unfinished U.S. Capitol. Lincoln strongly opposed slavery, but he also stressed the importance of the Union. Unlike Stephens, Lincoln appealed to “the better angels of our nature,” and reminded Americans: “We are not enemies, but friends—We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”
Lincoln understood that slavery could only end if the Union prevailed.
Recommit to the basic values that make this Union worth preserving
The president would spend the next four years — the rest of his life — seeking to save that Union, and to uphold the principles it stood for. At great cost, the nation survived, and slavery ended. America saw “a new birth of freedom.”
As we enter a tumultuous election cycle, we would do well to remember those costs. This nation is far from perfect, but many generations have suffered tremendously for the freedoms that we often take for granted. In an era of increasing political vitriol, it “is for us the living...to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”
More than Republicans or Democrats, America needs Lincolnites. It needs more of us everyday citizens to remember and recommit ourselves to the basic values that make this Union worth preserving. This takes work, and it requires us to respect our neighbors even when we adamantly disagree. But it would also do a lot more to heal this country’s wounds than “our side’s” victory in the next election ever could.
Robert Lowell is a J.D. candidate at Vanderbilt Law School. Prior to law school, he earned his B.A. in philosophy, politics, economics, and law (PPEL) and history from the University of Arizona.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Gettysburg Address anniversary can inspire America's new 'Lincolnites'