What Getsburg teaches us about Ukraine and America

Last week, President Trump told a series of obscene lies about Ukraine – that it began its war with Russia (Russia has already invaded Ukraine), that Ukrainian President Foludmir Zelinski is a dictator (not a strong Russian man Vladimir Putin) who stands with his approval by 4 percent (more (more (more From 50 percent, which is higher than the Trump classification).

Trump also said that the battlefield photos of the war in Ukraine reminded him of the Battle of Getsburg. Trump noted: “The soldiers are lying all over the field, and parts of the body around the field.” “It is a terrible thing.”

We can all agree on that: the war is hell. But Gettepierts was also a symbol of America’s obligations to freedom and democracy, thanks to the immortal discourse that Abraham Lincoln delivered there on November 19, 1863., whom Trump called the idol and its model.

Generators of American school students saved the title of Gettysburg, which Lincoln delivered on the site where 51,000 soldiers, wounded or families were killed in three days of the massacre. In comparison, the United States lost 58,000 life in the entire Vietnam War.

In only 275 words, Lincoln turned the civil war from a struggle to save the union – its original goal – to “a new birth of freedom”, and he also told 15,000 people who gathered to perpetuate a cemetery in Getsburg. The speech began by quoting the independence declaration, which confirmed that all men had been created equally. He ended it with a famous honor for democracy, pledging that “the people of the people, by the people, for the people, do not perish from the land.”

“From the Earth.” Not only from America.

This is the global dimension of Gettysburg, which we often ignore. Lincoln did not predict the renewal of freedom in the United States, as he reformulated the devastating internal conflict as part of an international conflict.

“Now we are involved in a great civil war. Freedom and democracy have been global principles, not only with American principles. So the battle was to defend them all over the world as well,” Lincoln told Gettepiert.

The world was watching. “The cause of America is the cause of freedom,” wrote one of the French observers in 1864. “As long as it will be throughout the Atlantic Ocean, a community consisting of thirty men, and they live with happiness and peace under a government of their choice, with laws by themselves, Liberty will throw her rays on Europe.”

The following year, when Lincoln was killed, Europe’s sadness. Another French author wrote: “Lincolnn is the issue of democracy in the largest and most global acceptance of the world.” “This reason is our cause, as much as the issue of the United States.”

Not everyone shared the case, of course. In 1933, on the eve of the Nazi acquisition of Germany, Adolf Hitler highlights the fact that Lincoln and the same equality won the American Civil War. Hitler announced: “The beginnings of a wonderful new social system have been destroyed based on the principle of slavery and inequality by the war.” He added that America “if the Confederation won”, it would have swept all the falsehood of freedom and equality. “

America itself continued to swell this ideal. That was the main message of Martin Luther King Junior, who started the 1963 march in Washington’s speech – on the steps of Lincoln Memorial – with a reference to the Gettepiert (“Five Points Years”). In November of that year, in the celebration of the centenary of the title, Foreign Minister Brigadier Rosk reiterated the subject of the king: If we do not respect civil rights at home, we cannot support democracy all over the world.

“Our Freedom Obligations are the source of our foreign policy,” Rosk told Getsberg. “Our failures disturb our friends and encourage our enemies.”

As he fully embraced Russian misinformation around Ukraine, Trump abandoned Ibrahim Lincoln’s commitment to freedom. On Monday, the United States voted against the United Nations resolution condemning the Russian aggression in Ukraine and called for the return of Ukrainian territory. Our friends in Europe feel distressed. Our enemies in Russia, North Korea and Iran – all voted against the United Nations resolution, also – fans. Maybe they are not even our enemies now.

But the future is up to the seizure. In 1959, the American Information Agency produced a comic book on Lincoln’s life for distribution around the world. The title of Gettysburg appeared on its inner cover, with a prediction that Lincoln’s speech “will bear forever as an expression of the spirit of the United States of America.”

We still have time to revive this spirit. And if we raise our voices to Ukraine – and against Trump – we can release the birth of another freedom. It is not up to him. It is up to us.

Jonathan Zimmerman is studying history and education at the University of Pennsylvania. He works in the Consultative Council of the Albert Liepage Center for History in the public interest.