For Freedom

“Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.”

--Pericles

This week we celebrate the beginning of our country. We revere and commemorate the great words penned by Thomas Jefferson, that declared the independence of the United States of America. I cannot write anything that might adequately express the feelings of Americans this week. Instead, I will borrow the words of Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address.

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, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so 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. 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 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.

We cannot voice our gratitude in a way that will do our founding fathers justice. We can express our thanks and honor their sacrifice far better by following in their steps. Their offering must not have been made in vain. This week we re-dedicate ourselves to the cause of freedom. We choose to defend our liberty.