Thursday, November 21, 2013

Did Lincoln Omit "Under God" From his Speech?

Did Lincoln Omit "Under God" From the Gettysburg Address?
There’s an interesting debate surrounding whether Lincoln actually included "God" in the delivery of his "Gettysburg Address." In the Nicolay and Hay versions the two that preceded the event there is no mention of the Almighty. It wasn’t until the Everett version, which was produced after the address, that "under God" was added into the transcript. We will never truly know if Lincoln uttered the Lord’s name during the speech, as it was not recorded. However, based on the AP version of the
speech which was transcribed and published at the time  Lincoln did, indeed use those words during the delivery of his famous speech.

A look at the AP text, as published nearly 150 years ago, seems to provide the answer (see bold):
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. [Applause] 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 general battle-field of that war; we are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place of 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. [Applause] The world will note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. [Applause]. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. [Applause]. It is rather for us here 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 here gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain. [Applause] That the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the Government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. [Long applause. Three cheers given for the President of the United States and the Governors of the States…."


 
Four of the versions mention God, two don't. Why do you think Obama chose one that did NOT mention GOD?

According to AP at the time of the Gettysburg address, President Lincoln did include the words "under God" in his  speech.  Obama chose to omit the God word. Why?
 

Read six different versions of the Gettysburg Address in their entirety.
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2012/11/read-six-different-versions-of-the-gettysburg-address/


Watch the video of Obama being Obama . . . still think he does not have Muslim leanings and can NOT bring himself to say GOD?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm-vfxZyJwo


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