Heidi Davis
Professor Frye
English 305
10/28/2015
Liberty and Freedom
President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (1863), has a great deal to say about the meaning and context of American freedom. He begins by stating that the new nation was "conceived in Liberty..." Although this may be somewhat of an exaggerated myth, as historians such as Howard Zinn have pointed to incidents such as Bacon's Rebellion and Shay's Rebellion to argue that veterans of the American Revolution felt the new government was tyrannical, Lincoln was certainly echoing what has become a stable of American political theory. Certainly, predating the French Revolution (1789), the American Revolution at least challenged the arbitrary authority of European monarchism, even if it did not address other social concerns (such as inequalities of wealth and economic opportunity).
Lincoln emphasized that the primary purpose of the United States, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, is to ensure "the proposition that all men are created equal." However, as he acknowledged, the United States had never truly embraced that notion, and it was thus embroiled "in a great civil war." He thus described American freedom as a work in progress, "it is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us..." and he demanded that Americans revise their understanding of
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In order to understand this, we must ask ourselves what is wrong with inequality, what does it feel like to not truly be treated like an equal. Few would describe this experience as a lawyer, and they would instead discuss how they felt in a common everyday encounter, such as at the grocery store or while walking down the street. If there is a group which feels that their 'social honor' is impugned by others, then we must at least acknowledge that the group is somehow disadvantaged during their interactions with