"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 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, 1/6
testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field 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. 2/6
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 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 3/6
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. 4/6
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 — 5/6
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." #twitterstorians#LincolnsBirthday 6/6
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US House of Representatives passed Civil Rights Bill of 1875 on 2/4/1875. Speaking in support of the bill that day was Rep. James Garfield of Ohio: "The warnings uttered today are not new. During the last twelve years it has often been rung in our ears that by doing justice 1/8
to the Negro we shall pull down the pillars of our political temple and bury ourselves in its ruins. I remember well when it was proposed to put arms in the hands of the black man to help us in the field. I remember in the Army of the Cumberland 2/8
where there were twenty thousand Union men from Kentucky and Missouri and we were told that those men would throw down their arms and abandon our cause if we dared to make the Negro a soldier. Nevertheless the men whose love of country was greater than their prejudice 3/8
#OnThisDay in 1863, Frederick Douglass spoke at The Cooper Institute in New York City. He addressed the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Lincoln about 5 weeks before: "I congratulate you, upon what may be called the greatest event of our nation’s history... 1/7
(issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation), if not the greatest event of the century… In the hurry and excitement of the moment, it is difficult to grasp the full and complete significance of President Lincoln’s proclamation. 2/7
The change in attitude of the Government is vast and startling. For more than sixty years the Federal Government has been little better than a stupendous engine of Slavery and oppression, through which Slavery has ruled us, as with a rod of iron. 3/7