Gettysburg Address, Nov 18, 1863

Ol' Abe presided over one of the most turbulent times in our history and as with all people he had to sort of feel his way along. Did he make mistakes along the way? Hell yeah he did. Did he change his mind about some things? Hell yeah he did. So has every President and so has every citizen of this country.

In his writings and speeches of the time he made it clear he wanted the country put back together. He spoke out against punishing the South at the end of the war, proposed the 'ten percent plan' to speed up reunification and his assassination is probably the biggest reason it took so long for the South to recover from the war. Which means that Booth did probably the dumbest thing a Southerner could possibly have done at the time.

Thanks, Abe.

Marjorie Suddard wrote: Really? We're going to this? Way to kick the spirit of that address in its proverbial nuts. Sad day when we can't honor Lincoln by understanding the heart of his speech, which was that we must overcome our surface disagreements and embrace our legacy and promise as Americans dedicated to a government that is by and for US. There's no Them in that. Oh, forget the big words. Pathetic. Margie

Thank you.

Let me make sure I’ve got this straight.

The president decides to pass over the version of the address that is, almost to exclusivity, the most commonly referenced and is viewed by the majority of scholars to be historically correct for an alternative version that omits the words “under god”.

In other words, he exploited the opportunity to incite a public reaction particularly from those that question his religious views. I’m not very religious; don’t care one way or the other. I won’t venture to guess why he did it; don’t care one way or the other.

What I do care about is our habitual playing out of old Billy Joel lyrics “she’ll cut you and laugh while you’re bleeding”. We go out of our way to offend people and then we ridicule them for being offended.

I see I’m in the minority here but I honestly feel we would have been better served if the president had just delivered the standard version with his world class communication skills.

That would have been powerful and inspiring. Instead, we got controversial and contentious.

In reply to RX Reven':

I somewhat doubt his staff team is aware that history exists.

I don't … he should have known better … but then I'm not pre-disposed to giving him OR ANY OTHER politician much of a break