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It has been 162 years, or eight scores and one year, since Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, where he wondered whether “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,” and “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.”

Since the Civil War, this nation has honored many more who died fighting for freedom and gave their last full measure of devotion.

The question before us today remains the same:

Do we highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain?

And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth?

The grass might seem greener in some idealized perfection.

However, our forefathers understood that perfection does not exist. The best we, the people as mere mortals, can do is to strive for a more perfect union. As stated in the Preamble to the Constitution:

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We the People of the United States, to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Though our system of governance is far from perfect, this government of the people, by the people, for the people has achieved unparalleled prosperity, tranquility, liberty, and freedoms the world has never seen before.

We are the embodiment of the American Dream that the world has long strived to match.

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Shall we instead become followers of some failed model of governance, one that is ever-shrinking in economic and substantive standing?

And abandon the birth of freedom our forebears fought and died to secure—the Blessings of Liberty, which include Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness?

Why not defend, honor, and be thankful for what our forefathers and the honored dead through these scores have fought in their last measure of devotion to secure?

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