I had to memorize this in school *frowns*, but even though I was reluctant and complained and fussed...
I can't help admitting that part of me loved it. The words, the sweetly powerful way they were arranged, the flow of the sentences and the love behind those words...it was all so amazing, so beautiful. You can almost feel the love, the passion, behind every comma and every letter and every period.
Abraham Lincoln was a great man. Thank God for men who shaped our country in His grace!

I arranged my takeaway thoughts into a haiku (as best as I could), as is my gimmick:

"Through the way we live,
We honor the dead more than
Any civic nod."

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. WHAT A GREAT BOOK .OVE THIS BOOK.

The civil war didn't accomplish what Lincoln wanted it to accomplish, but it did provide many opportunities to solidify him in history as more than just another president. His Gettysburg address was indicative of a man who wanted to make the best of a bad situation and try to make it sound like he planned it this way all along.

Good

Why am I required to write this? I just want to finish reading. Please stop annoying me. Ha ha ha

Probably the greatest political speech over made at exactly the moment it needed to be made.

This is truly one of the most monumental address' and events in History. Lincoln's delivery is both succinct and powerful, marking a crucial time in the American Civil War. Equally impressive is considering his decreasing popularity at the time, Lincoln was able to remain stubborn and resilient in his quest to re-unify North & South, though more importantly, emancipate slavery.

In this entire speech, this is the only thing that really stuck with me:

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.

It's a beautiful thought, and a wonderful expression of the humbleness that we ought to have for the sacrifices of martyrs.

Sadly, the rest of the speech wasn't nearly as good. Lincoln paints the Civil War as a conflict for freedom, when the war was only partially (if at all) fought for the slaves. And yet he doesn't mention the slaves at all. Whose freedom, then, does he talk about? The freedom of the southern farmers whose lands were ravaged? By the prisoners of war on both sides, that succumbed to starvation and disease? The Civil War was fought savagely. It was one of the first total wars fought in the modern age, and many of the veterans (particularly of the North!) reappear as butchers in the Indian Wars. As the Bible says:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

When a war is fought with such savagery, and brings such terrible consequences, then I need a little more than a Gettysburg Address to know that it was indeed fought for freedom, not for domination.

"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."

Wow, reading these Civil War books as you listen to the news nowadays is frightening. At that point we were fighting about the humanity of African-Americans, now we are expanding the fight to people of different sexualities, and our racial divide seems focused more on brown people, but it is the same arguement. We are trying to roll back the rights of women. The similarities are frightening.

Incomplete

Incomplete but good. This seems to be an edit designed to keep England's royal family happy. It must be the abridged version used to educate children in Europe. This would explain why its in the Anarchist Files.

Honest and succinct. It’s one of my favorite speeches given by a President.