I’ve re-written many things in modern English that I think people need to read today but the vocabulary is either to hard, or too “old” (words and styles we just don’t use anymore). It’s the 150th year anniversary of the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln so I thought I would add it to my collection of Modern English re-writes. Here’s a few more:
Please pass this on to every Patriot and God-fearing American you know. We are in a “civil war” again of sorts, fighting for the survival of “one nation UNDER GOD” which your current President conveniently LEFT OUT of his reading of the Gettysburg address yesterday. Accident? You decide.
The Gettsyburg Address (Modern English Version By Brent Riggs)
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania | November 19, 1863
“Eighty-seven years ago, the founding fathers of our nation brought forth a new nation, created in Liberty and dedicated to this foundational idea: ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
Now our nation is experiencing a great civil war, putting to the test whether our nation – or any nation founded on and dedicated to equality – can stand the test of time. We are here today on a great battle field of that civil war. We’ve come to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place for those who gave their lives so that this nation of equal men may continue to live on. It is the right time and the right thing to do.
But, looking at it from a higher view, we cannot dedicate or bless this ground. The brave men – living and dead – who fought here have already dedicated it in a way far more powerfully than anything we can say or do here today. The world will hardly notice and quickly forget anything we say here today but it will never forget what these men did. So it is now the responsibility of the living to be dedicated to finishing the work for which they so bravely and honorably struggled and gave their life. It is our duty to be committed to the great task that lies ahead of us: we honor the dead by increasing our devotion to the cause for which they gave up their lives, and that we are intensely determined that they shall not have died in vain… that this nation UNDER GOD shall experience a new life of freedom – and that our government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from this earth.”
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Original text:
Four score 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. 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. 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. 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 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.
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