On November 19th, 1863 Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery at the battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. How mesmerized I was by those words in my youth, how shallow and empty I now recognize them to be.
The last full measure of devotion was for naught and indeed did die in vain.
There was to be no new birth of freedom at least not in a nation, under God.
A government of the people, by the people, for the people, has not yet existed on this earth.
How we wonder why Lincoln could not heed his own advice given only two years earlier as he concluded his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection…”
Perhaps one day soon we will one day finally fulfill those solemn words in our deeds and actions as we create a truly peaceful and voluntary world united by mutually beneficial exchange combined with goodwill so that at last those at rest may not have ultimately died in vain.
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Of course, Saint Lincoln was a pioneer in the rodomontade that’s still being perfected by such as Bvsh and 0bama. It took years for me to realize that; some people never will. Perhaps it was because I was a bad student in the State Indoctrination Centers, i.e. public schools, that I ever did come to realize it.
The man who absolutely predicted our current situation was Gen. Robert E. Lee, who wrote to Lord Acton after the War of Federal Agression (per Lew Rockwell), “…the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.”
Lee’s right hand man, Gen. Longstreet, also understood what was likely to come when he observed before that battle, ” we should have freed the slaves and THEN fired on Fort Sumter.”
It was when I first asked about the nature and consent of the governed that the bulb began to light. No one in authority with advanced degrees seemed to have a suitable answer and then I found Spooner…
And, Etienne de la Boetie, Bastiat, Gustave de Molinari, Menger, and Auberon Herbert were not long after.
One of my earliest exposures to Austrianism was this great book (http://mises.org/store/Real-Lincoln-The-P172.aspx), which I happened upon when it was first released. Of course, I didn’t realize this at the time. Everyone should read it.
Could be that there is more to Lincoln’s animus with respect to the South than textbook account.
http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/most-popular/1455-abraham-lincoln-was-half-black-historians-reveal.html
Why should we care whether he was half, quarter, three-sixteenths or any other combination of black? This doesn’t change the fact that:
1. he was a racist
2. he didn’t care about slavery
3. the civil war was never about slavery
4. he was a world-class platonist and statist a-hole
I am convinced that the Gettysburge Address is popular not because of substance, there really is none, but because it is short. It fits in text books and it can be memorized easily.
And every public school kid learns it, but does not learn the Dec. of Independence.
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