By Paul S. Gardiner

The 159th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s iconic 1863 Gettysburg Address occurs on November 19, 2022. If he were alive and president today, how would his brief, 272-word speech possibly change? What he might say is presented below in another revised 272-word address.

President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential statements of American national purpose. In 2022, what would he say to address America’s current civil strife and dangers? What would he say to motivate his listeners to strongly guard their individual freedoms and fight against socialism, attacks on the American family unit and youth, cheating in elections, and so forth?

What President Lincoln might say follows:

Twelve score and six years ago, our forefathers brought upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal; that all men are endowed with certain God-given, unalienable rights — among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our blessed Constitution guarantees citizens unique freedoms and rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and the right to own and bear arms.

Now we are engaged in a great moral, spiritual, and political war, testing whether our nation, or any nation so conceived in liberty and dedicated to equality, can long endure. Hostile forces strive to cause division in our nation, endeavoring to greatly diminish the value of the traditional American family unit, move people away from belief in our Creator, attack the sanctity of our nation’s youth, and undermine our elections.

A conglomerate of radical, far-left politicians and government officials, media owners and commentators, people in academia, and their wealthy supporters zealously strive to undermine America’s constitutional republic. They, along with the perpetrators of the international “Great Reset” movement, earnestly work to turn America ultimately into a one-party totalitarian state with a gargantuan loss of freedom for the American people.

It is for us then to be dedicated to the great task of defeating these enemies of the Republic for which multiple generations of patriotic Americans have given their lives. Henceforth, let us be highly resolved that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that this government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Paul S. Gardiner is a retired U.S. Army officer, Vietnam veteran, and avid lover of America and its treasured freedoms. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Alabama, and the U.S. Army War College.