Gettysburg Address: Battle For A Better America

Battle for a Better America Gettysburg. A bloody page in American history. This was a battle in a civil war, that shaped the way the nation is today. In three days, in the same month America was born, over fifty thousand American men became casualties of war, fighting brothers of the same nation; over the fate of African-Americans’ future. The Confederates sought to keep the blacks in slavery, while the Union opted to free them. Abraham Lincoln, who belonged to the latter, would four months later, make one of the most memorable speeches of all time. This would be known as the “Gettysburg Address.” Lincoln would address the dead and the living soldiers, as well as civilians, on the importance of why this battle occurred, and why he believed …show more content…
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. (Lincoln 324).” The very principles of what the nation was built on, was under siege by the pro-slavery confederates. Not only is he saying, will America survive this ordeal, but any other nation that carries the same principles as the present America. He reiterates his statement from earlier in different phrasing, wanting the people to realize that, what makes America, is liberty and equality, and without that, there is no America. The “Great Emancipator”, as Lincoln was also known, addressed another reason for his speech. That was to dedicate part of the field as a final resting place for the men who lost their lives there, knowing what they fought for (Lincoln …show more content…
It empowers his words, engaging his audience further into his speech. He also retracts his statement of dedicating the ground to the lost men. “It is up for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced (Lincoln 324).” Lincoln is saying that the war is not over, the fight for liberty and equality is still ongoing, thus why the ground may not be dedicated to the dead soldiers. He also uses his speech to rally people to his fight, for the abolition of slavery, for freedom. “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth (Lincoln 324).” What is stated is true democracy, the people are what makes America live, but for the nation to be healthy, slavery must not exist. In this magnificent speech, Abraham Lincoln used different tenses. In his opening statement, he brought up the past, about how America was born, and what it was built on. The second part was him stating the current ordeal of the great nation. That was the turmoil of the civil war, and him stating that what kept America alive was the very ideals of the Declaration of Independence,