November 19, 1863
Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy in battle there. His carefully crafted address, only two minutes long, remains one of the greatest and most influential statements of national purpose. The concluding phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is included in he current Constitution of France, which states that the principle of the Republic of France is “gouvernement du peuple, par le peuple et pour le peuple“, a literal translation of Lincoln’s words. Sun Yat-Sen’s “Three Principles of the People” were also inspired from that phrase.
