The Gettysburg Address: Where America Isn't Today

“I confess that I do not entirely approve this Constitution at present, but Sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it. . . . In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government is necessary for us. . . . . I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. . . . . It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this System approaching so near to Perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our Enemies. who are waiting with confidence to hear how our Councils are Confounded, like those of the Builders of Babel, and that our States are on the Point of Separation, only to meet, hereafter, for the purposes of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and I am not sure that it is not the best. . . . . On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a Wish, that every Member of the Convention, who may still have Objections to it, would with me on this Occasion doubt a little of his own Infallibility, and to make manifest our Unanimity, put his Name to this instrument.” Benjamin Franklin, 1787, stating his consent to the new US Constitution

The Gettysburg Address struck me as reflecting something that is now largely lost in much of American society. It refers to our, origins, and the war and sacrifices that social division fomented. It expresses a sentiment that despite our often bitter, unresolvable disagreements, there is still something valuable and decent here to fight for. As Ben Franklin astutely pointed out in 1787, we never were perfect right from the get go. Despite that, we only do what we can under the circumstances we find ourselves. Doing that requires sacrifice for the common good, despite some ideological claims that the collective interest is inferior and inimical to the sacred individual and sacred their property. Lincoln didn't see it that way in 1863. Not by a long shot. Neither do I.[1]

The Gettysburg Address

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. —Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

Society seems to usually progress slowly. Sometimes, its spurts ahead for a while. Sometimes it goes in reverse, as it is doing now. We have quite a way to go to get back to where I think we were earlier in my lifetime. What could lead to a reversal of the reversal isn't clear, but is probably isn't going to just be pragmatic rationalism alone. That seems to be a glue that's emotionally too weak to cement the social social vision and cohesion that Lincoln tried to foment in 1863 and we now desperately need again.


Footnote:
1. For a while, maybe the last year or so, one thing that has felt deficient about pragmatic rationalism is its lack of some sort of a spiritual or emotional component. Not necessarily religious or supernatural, but something. It isn't clear what that component (moral value?) might be.