Measuring greatness

It’s no secret that your Center City Correspondent is a fan of Abraham Lincoln. (Is he on Facebook?) Mrs. CCC and I have traveled to Gettysburg a number of times and each time we start at the national cemetery and I am in deep awe of Mr. Lincoln’s address dedicating the cemetery. Learned scholars have written that that one speech has changed the way we govern ourselves, that the Declaration of Independence which he references in his speech, is now the pre-eminent document, eclipsing even the Constitution. That may be debatable, but they make a good case. I bring this up because today (Nov 19) is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, 146 years ago. It is undoubtedly the best American speech ever, maybe one of the top 5 in the English language, and still stirring today. Check out the link below.




A current-day politician recently in the news campaigned on the platform that she was “an average American” and that she should be given the opportunity to govern because of her ordinariness. I’m of the mind that we don’t want ordinary people to govern us, rather extraordinary people, like Mr. Lincoln. Is it unfair to compare the two? Maybe. But it’s not unfair to use greatness as a yardstick to measure others against. We deserve the best.



http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm