Why do you think that Lincoln refers to the year 1776 at the start of his speech?

Class,

This week you learned about the American Civil War (1861-1865), a conflict that, very simply,  was about slavery. However, as President Abraham Lincoln suggests in his famous Gettysburg Address, more than slavery was at stake in the Civil War.

Consider the following passage from Lincoln’s The Gettysburg Address:

“Four score and seven years ago [in 1776] 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. We are met on a great battlefield 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.” In this passage, Lincoln states that the Civil War is being fought so that the nation “might live.”

In this assignment, please respond to the bolded points below by 6 PM on Monday, June 1. Click the “Submit Assignment” button above to type in your response.

• Why do you think that Lincoln refers to the year 1776 at the start of his speech? Please explain your reasoning.
• In what way is the Civil War a conflict for the very livelihood of the United States? Please explain your answer.

This assignment is worth 10 points and is graded on the following scale: 10 points, 8 points, 6 points, and 0 points. Please see the grading rubric for guidance on what is expected for full credit. Click the “snowman” icon (3 vertical dots in the upper left corner of the screen), then select “Show Rubric.” Mobile users: Click Grades, then click into the Discussion. The rubric can then be found on the Grades tab.).

This assignment will remain open until 6 PM on Thursday, June 4. Note the policy on “make-ups and late assignments” from the syllabus: “students who submit a primary source response late will incur a penalty of two points deducted from their total score for each day the assignment is late. Additionally, students who submit a primary source response late will not receive any instructor feedback.”