H. L. Mencken wrote, “The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination—that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.”
Thank you for a very interesting quote.
I have never been a great admirer of Lincoln. Although I certainly respect his personal passion to end slavery, I think he inflicted horrifying damage on the Constitution and the country in his effort to make that happen.
I'm not sure I have read anything by Mencken, but I know some people describe him as a Conservative.
I read through Mencken's bio on Wiki and found another quote you might enjoy:
Democracy, as defined by Mencken, is “the worship of jackals by jackasses.”