A Great Civil War Is Raging

“THE GREAT TASK REMAINING BEFORE US”

by John Porter, ©2020

(Oct. 21, 2020) — On November 19, 1863 America’s first Republican president said, “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure” (emphasis mine).

Now we are once again engaged in a great civil war. The war is raging as I write. It is not a war being fought with guns, but at ballot boxes across America. The fighting is fierce. The decisive battle will be fought on November 3, 2020 to determine whether that nation, conceived in liberty, will much longer endure.

Lincoln continues: “We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for 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.”

As we all know many have given their lives, including one of my brothers, that that nation might live. Not one of them died defending Socialism.

He continues, and these words could very well be written for us today as our civil war is being fought: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us 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 these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Are we guilty of forgetting what those before us have done? Are we, the living, truly dedicated to the unfinished work and “the great task remaining before us?” Can we “take increased devotion” from all those who have died in defense of that conception of liberty? Can we be resolved that these fellow Americans in all the wars, our family, our friends, and our neighbors have not died in vain, so that our Constitutional Republic shall not cease to exist?

I honestly believe, after the deciding battle is over on November 3, 2020, 157 years to the month following Mr. Lincoln’s address, if the Socialists being led by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are given the reins in the presidency and both chambers of Congress, we will have failed in our devotion, and all those who have fought and died will have done so in vain. We will have freely given away what they died to preserve.

It is my hope and prayer that everyone who reads this will SHARE, so millions across America can read it.