Liberty, Equality, and Freedom Theme Analysis

Surprisingly, Lincoln doesn’t speak much about liberty, equality, or freedom in the Gettysburg Address.  In fact, each term in this patriotic trifecta occurs only once: Lincoln declares in the first sentence that the United States is a nation “conceived in liberty” and dedicated to the principle that “all men are created equal,” and he concludes by envisioning “a new birth of freedom” in the nation.  However, these themes implicitly inform every aspect of the speech and Lincoln’s message to his audience, specifically that the Civil War is a test of the values that define the nation known as the United States.  Soldiers “gave their lives” not only that the “nation might live,” but that the values at the heart of the nation––liberty and equality and freedom––might endure.  Moreover, the survival of these values depends not only upon soldiers fighting in combat but upon Lincoln’s audience, the representatives of the nation who embody its defining values.  For Lincoln, freedom depends upon everyone, especially “the living,” to honor the dead by carrying on the work the soldiers “nobly advanced” to preserve these values.  Thus, the audience must commit themselves not only to the war but to the ideals of the country in order to ensure its existence, advancing the nation the founding fathers envisioned as a world-wide symbol of democracy.