What Does “Of the People, By the People, For the People” Mean?

It is sobering to visit Cemetery Hill in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—as I did for the first time last week.

Cemetery Hill is the name of the place where a private cemetery was started in 1854. Nine years later, from July 1-3, 1863, it became the site of one of the most important battles of the Civil War.

That was also the place where in November of that year President Lincoln delivered what we know as the Gettysburg Address, a speech that took about two minutes. In the picture below you see June looking at the bust of Lincoln. His entire talk is engraved on the bronze plaque behind her. 

In some of the most widely quoted words from Gettysburg Address, Lincoln expressed his strong desire that “the nation 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.”

Those words are generally taken as a clear call for democracy—and surely that is correct. But there is almost no one in this country, regardless of political party, who does not advocate or support democracy. 

For some reason, though, more than one speaker at the meeting of the Faith and Freedom Coalition meeting (that I wrote about here) thought it important to cite Lincoln’s words—and to emphasize that he was a Republican.

Some say that Lincoln was making a clarion call for equality among all people of the nation. Those words were spoken after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on Jan. 1, 1863. Still, that proclamation only freed slaves in the Confederate States.

Moreover, it would be another 57 years before women of any color could participate equally in the democratic process by voting.

Others may point out that a government “for the people” is one that actively promotes the “general Welfare,” as stated in the preamble of the Constitution.

That, though, seems to be at odds with a major emphasis of the Republican Party since the days of President Reagan, who emphasized that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

It is somewhat puzzling that in his inaugural address of 1981, Reagan went on to say, “From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people.”

Republicans now repeatedly talk about smaller government, states’ rights, and decisions made locally rather than in Washington.

Lincoln’s words, though, were spoken in the midst of the Civil War, fought first of all to keep the Union together. He was surely talking about a federal government “for, by, and of the people.”

If it had been left up to the individual states, or to local governments, how long would it have taken for the slaves of the South to be freed? Another 50 years? Another 100 years? Perhaps.

As it was, it took almost a hundred years for the Civil Rights Act to be passed in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act to be passed in 1965—and those two extremely important pieces of legislation were enacted by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Democratic President.

Basic positions of the Democratic and Republican parties in the 1960s were almost completely reversed from those of the 1860s—and people who fail to note that change misconstrue American history.

So, I want a federal government of, by, and for the people—just like Lincoln did. 

Words that Remade America

November 19, 1863. That was the date of the Gettysburg Address, the speech delivered by President Lincoln during the Civil War.

That remarkable speech was given at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, several months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the bloody Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863.

There were nearly 8,000 battle deaths during those three days of fighting in southern Pennsylvania, about 60% of them being Confederate soldiers led by General Robert E. Lee.

More than 27,000 combatants were wounded, with more than half being Union soldiers, commanded by General George G. Meade. What a horrible time in the history of this country!

At the end of the battle, those 8,000 human bodies were strewn across the ground around Gettysburg, a town of only 2,500 inhabitants. Because of the stinking decay of those bodies, most were just covered over with a thin cover of dirt—many to partly resurface later.

Something had to be done. That was the reason for making the National Cemetery and dedicating it on that Nov. 19 afternoon 150 years ago next Monday.

President Lincoln’s speech, which was fewer than 280 words long (less than half the length of this article), has been called “the words that remade America” in the subtitle of Garry Wills’s 1992 book “Lincoln at Gettysburg.”

As has often been pointed out, Lincoln’s main motive in the Civil War was not the freeing of the slaves, although he later embraced that purpose also. His main desire was to preserve the Union, forming a true union of all the people of all 35 states that existed at that time, including the 11 that seceded in 1861.

According to Wills, until the Civil war, “the United States” was invariably a plural noun, as in “the United States are a free government.” After Gettysburg, it became singular, as in “the United States is a free government” (p. 145).

Because of Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg, people in this country came to understand both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in a new way. That is why Wills avers that the Lincoln’s short speech “remade America.”

What significance does the Gettysburg Address have for us in the U.S. today? For starters, the country needs to recognize anew the importance of the union and of all the people within the country.

Now, as in 1861 when the Civil War began, there are great economic tensions and polarity within the country. Just last year more than 125,000 Texans signed a petition saying they wanted to secede from the Union!

Historian Arthur Herman has written about the possibility of a second civil war in this country, beginning perhaps in 2014. In July 2012, Herman (b. 1956) wrote an article about this coming civil war between “the Makers” and “the Takers.” In other words, it would be class (economic) warfare.

Then, in January of this year, FoxNews.com published a second article by Herman titled, “We’re now one step closer to America’s coming civil war.”

Let’s hope Herman is wrong and join together in the resolve to protect the basic human rights, dignity and equality of all people in this nation. Let us do so in order that, in Lincoln’s words, “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

To remake America now, we all need to heed Lincoln’s appeal at the close of his Second Inaugural Address as he called on the nation to act “with malice toward none, with charity toward all.”