The Right State

Happy Birthday America!  May God grant you many, many more years to come.  For 232 you have endured and even prospered while other nations have become a footnote in history.  America was founded on the idea that all men (and women) were created equal.  For 232 years men and women have fought to protect some same values.  Today our brave soldiers are fighting and dying to preserve those same values this country was built on.

For people like me who are proud of their country, we can not adequately express our feelings towards America without a thank you towards those who protect us.  And so with pride in my heart for this great country and the freedoms I enjoy, I say thank you to the men and women who wear the uniform protecting our freedoms around the world.

One of the greatest speeches of all time was written by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.  During the speech he expresses pride in America, the reason he is continuing the fight, and expresses a heartfelt pride for those fighting and dying for those freedoms.

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.

Wow! Even today this speech gives me chills.  As an American patriot I have read this speech dozens of times.  As a history teacher I read this great speech…more times than I can count.  Each time I read it, it fills me with pride for my country and fills me with gratitude towards the American soldier.

Happy 232^nd Birthday America.

Tags: History //