A New Birth of Freedom

Clicking on the above link will take you to the text of the Gettysburg Address, and the phrase within that named this blog. It's a quick read and I recommend you bookmark it. It helps me to remember that the cost must be counted, that principle has its price. Six hundred thousand men from all over the country paid that price during the Civil War, and Lincoln's few words spoken at Gettysburg ensured that we would never forget.

After 80 years of existence, the two parts of our country were growing further and further apart; compromise after compromise was proposed on the issues facing North and South, and some of them succeeded... for a time.

The election of Abraham Lincoln (the first Republican president, by the way) was the final straw for the deep South. His name did not even appear on the ballot in 1860 in several Southern states, but with candidates running separately in the North and South, the Democratic party was hopelessly split and Lincoln won by default. Several states seceded from the Union, then several more followed, and the rest is history. By 1865 the war was over, the Union was restored, but Lincoln was dead. Slavery was forever banished in our United States, and the black man was the equal of the white, finally, before the Law.

What no war can change is the hearts of men. Nearly 150 years later, some hatreds still run strong in our nation. We have made progress, but I am not naive enough to think that the problem has been solved. And some people don't want to hear this, but the problem never will be completely solved. As with poverty, disease, and war, hatred will always be present on this earth until it's end.

And here is the point: this is part of our legacy as Americans. The Civil War, more than any other event in our nation's history, defined who we are. The pride of our youth fought and died for their principles. Was the South wrong? On the issue of slavery, absolutely. But don't think for a moment that the South had the market cornered on racism; there was plenty to go around. We were a flawed nation then, and we still are. No nation founded by men is going to be perfect, but it can strive for perfection.

Those boys buried at Gettysburg - the Blue and the Gray - died for something. Not for money, not for policy, but for principle. Their conflicting ideas of what America should be meant so much to them that they died for them. A true American stands on principle, and there is a point in time when he will fight to uphold those principles.

And here is where this all ties in to the problems facing our nation today: we have to identify our principles, and we have to fight for them. Not necessarily with guns, but with our votes, and our voices. The sad truth is that most of us don't know what our principles are. We don't know where our line is that cannot be crossed - or where it should be.

Is life sacred from the moment of conception until natural death?
Should the family unit be redefined from father, mother, children into father, father or mother, mother?
Should the government take from some to give to others?
Does the Constitution - at one time our guiding document - still matter?

Answering the basic questions of principle simplifies any debate over policy. If any part of a policy violates the principles we hold dear, it cannot be the right thing to do. If life is sacred from conception, no policy - or candidate - who opposes this viewpoint can be the solution we are searching for. If we believe that government should not take from some to give to others, then no bill or policy that does this can be correct. Principle must guide policy. We must learn what our principles are, and quickly.

There can still be a new birth of freedom.