Happy 4th of July

I'm still blogging from my balcony overlooking the bay in Somers Point, NJ, at the fabulous Pier 4 Hotel.



Today is July 4th, which is, as most of my readers know, is the birthday of The United States of America. It is also the birthday of the Crotchety Old lady, although she is slightly younger than America.

I'm sure a number of other bloggers are doing tributes and they are wonderful.

I'm doing something slightly different.

In the middle of the night, I woke up and started thinking about the Gettysburg Address. This was probably the most significant speech in American history. It was short, and eloquent, and began the healing process of the Civil War.

Few of us know much beyond the first few words. I thought I'd print the entire speech here.

It sums up what America means to me. It's more than fireworks, songs, and Yankee games.

And now

Mr Lincoln:

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon 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 battlefield 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 cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot 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.


Note to those who aren't history geeks like me. The Battle of Gettysburg took place from July 1-3, 1863.

Humor-Blogs.com