The Most Remembered and Most Often Quoted Statement
<em>The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. </em>I think that every American is well aware of the Gettysburg Address. They may not remember much about anything anyone else said, but we all remember the contents of Lincoln's remarks. It is taught in almost every school and at every grade level (nearly). It is as unAmerican to claim that no one will remember it as it is to claim that we do not have a democracy anywhere on earth. Not substantiated. At least in Lincoln's case.
<em>that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.</em> This is the hardest one to make a comment about. It didn't look that way when in 1870 the 15th Amendment was passed. It sounded like slaves and others (Native Americans for one) were granted immediate freedom with the right to vote, but the states had ways of fighting back. It was not until the mid 1960s that this opinion began to be just words on a paper. I'd it was substantiated, but it took generations before you could say it really was so.
<em>That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. </em>It remains to be seen whether this one is true or not. Great challenges like ahead. I don't think you could say either way.