It seems almost like fate that in the year of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday our nation would elect its first black president. Two Illinoisans, separated by nearly two centuries, are tied together by a seemingly insurmountable goal. It was Lincoln’s actions that paved the way so we could overcome the racial barriers to become a nation in which all men are created equal. And though we struggle every day to live up to the testament of his declaration, the progress we made is evident by last fall’s election.

But we can’t stop yet. Although President Obama’s election to the White House is a proud moment for this nation, we still struggle to cope with its bloody and insufferable past. The time between Lincoln and Obama has healed many wounds and diminished the pain of our wrong doings. However, we still strive to become the nation Lincoln described during the height of the Civil War. Today is a day to celebrate the life of a great man, but his message cannot be lost tomorrow.

The Gettysburg Address was short in length, but powerful in its resilience to push this country through tragedy and into triumph, to overcome discrimination for equality, and, ultimately, to elect our first black president.

It should never be forgotten.

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 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 can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not 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.