Thank you. Rock and roll. Ok. Thank you all for being here. [cheers and applause] thank you. I appreciate you being here on this gorgeous day in a magnificent, magnificent setting. I think about all the lives that were lost here. Please, all, have a seat. On july 4, 1863, america worked with the remains of perhaps the most consequential battle on american soil. It took place on this ground at gettysburg. Three days of violence, three days of carnage, 50,000 casualties wounded, captured, missing, or dead over three days of fighting. When the sun rose on that independence day, we would retreat. Lee would retreat. The war would go on for nearly two more years. The back of the confederacy had been broken. The union would be saved. Slavery would be abolished. The government of, by, and for the people would not perish from the earth and freedom would be born anew in our land. Theres no more fitting place than here today in gettysburg to talk about the cost of division, how much it has cost america in the past, how much it is costing us now and why i believe in this moment we must come together as a nation. For president lincoln, the civil war was about the greatest of causes the end of slavery, widening equality, pursuit of justice, the creation of opportunity, and the sanctity of freedom. His words would live ever after. We hear them in our heads. We know them in our hearts. We draw on them. We seek hope in hours of darkness. Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers woke forth on this brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Here on this sacred ground, Abraham Lincoln reimagined america itself. Here, president of the United States spoke of the price of division and the meaning of sacrifice. He believed in the rescue, redemption, and rededication of the union. All this at a time not just of ferocious division but of widespread death, structural iniquity, and fear of the future. And he taught us this a house divided could not stand. That is a great and timeless truth. Today, once again, we are a house divided. That, my friends, can no longer be. We are facing too many crises. We have too much work to do. We have two bright a future to have a shipwreck on the shoals of anger and hate and division. As we stand here today a century and a half later after gettysburg, we should consider again what can happen when equal justice is denied, when anger and violence and division are left unchecked. As i look across america today, im concerned the country is in a dangerous place. Our trust in each other is ebbing. Hope remains elusive. Too Many Americans see our public life not as an arena for mediation of our differences but an occasion for total, unrelenting partisan warfare. Instead of treating each others parties as the opposition, we treat them as the enemy. This must end. We need to revive the spirit of bipartisanship, the spirit of being able to work with one another. When i say that, and ive been saying it for two years, ive been told im naive. Im told thats the way things used to work, but they cannot work that way anymore. Im here to tell you they can and must if we are going to get anything done. Im running as a proud democrat, but i will govern as an american president. I will work with democrats and republicans. I will work as hard for those who dont support me as those who do. Thats the job of a president the duty to care for everyone. Refusal of democrats and republicans to cooperate with one another is not due to some Mysterious Force beyond our control. Its a decision. Its a choice we make. If we decide not to cooperate, we can decide to cooperate as well. [applause] thats the choice i will make as president. But there is something bigger going on in this nation then just our broken politics. Something darker, something more dangerous, and are not talking about ordinary differences of opinion, competing viewpoints give life and vibrancy to our democracy. No, im talking about something different, something deeper. Too Many Americans seek not to overcome our divisions but to deepen the. But to deepen them. We must seek not to build walls but bridges. We must seek not to have our fist clenched put our arms open. We have to seek not to tear each other apart but seek to come together. You dont have to agree with me on everything or even on most things. The scene that we are experiencing today is neither to see that we are experiencing today is neither good nor normal. I made the decision to run for president after charlottesville. Close your eyes and remember what you saw neonazis, White Supremacists, and the kkk coming out of the field with torches lighted, veins bulging, chanting the same antisemitic bile heard across europe in the 1930s. It was hate out in the open in america. Hate never goes away. It only hides. When its given oxygen, when its given an opportunity to spread, when its treated as normal and acceptable behavior, we have opened a door in this country that we must move quickly to close. As president , thats just what i will do. I will send a clear, unequivocal message to the entire nation there is no place for hate in america. It will be given no license. It will be given no oxygen. It will be given no safe harbor. In recent weeks and months, the country has been riled by instances of Excessive Police force, heartwrenching cases of Racial Injustice. Peaceful protesters being given lives, needlessly and senselessly lost, by Peaceful Protesters being given voice in calls for justice. Violent examples of looting and burning that cannot be tolerated. I believe in law and order. Ive never supported defunding the police, but i also believe injustice is real and is the product of a history that goes back 400 years when black men, women, and children were first brought here in change. In chains. I do not believe we have to choose between law and order and Racial Justice in america. We can have both. This is a nation Strong Enough to both honestly face systemic racism and Strong Enough to provide safe streets for families and Small Businesses that too often bear the brunt of this looting and burning. We have no need for armed militias roaming american streets, and we should have no tolerance for extremist White Supremacy groups menacing our communities. If you say we should trust american Law Enforcement authorities to do the job, as i do, then let them do their job without extremist groups acting as vigilantes. You say we have no need to face Racial Injustice in the country, you have not open your eyes to the truth in america. There have been powerful voices for justice in recent weeks and months. George floyds sixyearold daughter, whom i met with, who looked at me and said in her small child voice, daddy changed the world. Jacob blakes mother is another who said violence does not reflect her son and this nation needs healing. Doc rivers, the basketball coach, choking back tears when he said, we are the ones getting killed. We are the ones getting shot. Weve been hung. Its amazing why we keep loving this country and this country does not love us back. I think about that. I think about what it takes for a black person to love america. That is a deep love of country that has for far too long never been recognized. We need an American Leadership that seeks to deescalate tensions, to open lines of communication, to bring us together, to heal, to hope. As president , thats precisely what i will do. We paid a high price for allowing the deep division in this country to impact how we deal with the coronavirus. 210,000 americans dead, and the number is climbing. Its estimated that nearly another americans could lose 210,000 their lives by the end of the year. Enough. No more. Lets just set partisanship aside. Lets end the politics and follow the science. Wearing a mask is not a political statement. Its a scientific recommendation. Social distancing is not a political statement. Its a scientific recommendation. Testing, tracing, development, approval, and distribution of a vaccine is not a political statement. It is a sciencebased decision. We cannot do what has been done. We cannot go back. We cant on do what has been done. What has beendo done. We cannot go back. We can do so much better. We can do better starting today. We can have a National Strategy that puts politics aside and saves lives. We can have a National Strategy that will make it possible for schools and businesses to open safely. We can have a National Strategy that reflects the true values of this nation. This pandemic is not a red state or blue state issue. This virus does not care where you live or what Political Party you belong to. It affects us all. It will take anyones life. Its a virus. Its not a political weapon. Theres another enduring division in america that we must end the division of our Economic Life that gives opportunity to only the privileged few. America has to be about mobility. It has to be the kind of country where an Abraham Lincoln, a child of the distant frontier, can rise to the highest office of the land. America has to be about possibility the possibility of prosperity, not just for the privileged few, but for the many, for all of us, working people and their kids deserve an opportunity. Lincoln knew this. He said the country had to give people an open field and a fair chance. Thats what we are going to do in the america that we are going to build together. We fought a civil war that would secure a union, that would seek to fulfill the promise of equality for all, and by fits and starts, our better angels have prevailed just enough against our worst impulses to make a new and better nation, and those better angels can prevail again now. They must prevail again now. 100 years after lincoln spoke at gettysburg, the Vice President , lyndon b. Johnson, also came here. Heres what he said he said, our nation found its soul and honor in gettysburg. We must not lose that soul and honor on the fields of hate. In dishonor now on the fields of hate. Today, we engage once again in the battle for the soul of the nation. The forces of darkness, the forces of division, the forces of yesterday are pulling us apart, holding us down and holding us back. We must free ourselves of all of that. As president , i will embrace hope, not fear, peace, nonviolence, generosity, not greed, and light, not darkness. I will be a president who appeals to the best of us, not the worst. I will be a president who pushes toward the future, not one who clings to the past. Im ready to fight for you and for our nation every day without exception, without reservation and with a full and devoted heart. We cannot and will not allow extremist and White Supremacists to overturn the legacy of Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Dont return to the america that has been a haven and home for everyone, no matter their background. We are at our best when the promise of america is available for all. We cannot and will not allow violence in the streets to threaten the people of this nation. We cannot and will not walk away from our obligations to at long last face the reckoning on race and Racial Justice in this country. We cannot and will not continue to be struck in the partisan politics that lets this virus thrive while the Public Health of this nation suffers. We cannot and will not accept an economic equation that only favors those who have already got it made. Everyone deserves a shot at prosperity. [applause] folks, duty and history call president s to provide for the common good, and i will. It wont be easy. It wont be easy. Our divisions today are longstanding. Economic and racial inequities have shaped us for generations, but i give you my word i give you my word, if im elected president , i will marshall the ingenuity and goodwill of this nation to bring us together because i think people are looking for that. We can disagree about how we move forward. We must take the first steps and start with how we treat one another, how we talk to one another, how we respect one another. Lincoln said with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness and the right god gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in to bind the nations wounds. Now we have our work to reunite america, to bind up our nations wounds so we, you and i together, can press on even now. To move past shadow and suspicion. After hearing the second inaugural address, Frederick Douglass told president lincoln that was a sacred effort. We have to be dedicated to our own sacred effort. The promise of gettysburg and the new birth of freedom was at hand. I think its at risk. Every generation that has followed gettysburg has been faced with a moment when it must answer this question, if it will allow the sacrifices made here to be in vain or be fulfilled. This is our moment to answer this essential american question for ourselves and for our time. My answer is this it cannot be that after all this country has been through, after all that america has accomplished, after all the years we have stood as a beacon of light to the world, it cannot be that here and now in 2020, we will allow the government of the people, by the people, and for the people to perish on this earth. No, it cannot and it must not. We have in our hands the only power the power to vote. Its the noblest instrument ever devised to register our will in a peaceable and productive fashion, and so we must we must vote. We will vote, no matter how many obstacles are thrown in our way because once america votes, america will be heard. Lincoln said the nation is worth fighting for. So it was, and so it is. Together as one nation under god, indivisible, lets join forces to fight the common foe of injustice and inequality, hate and fear. Lets conduct ourselves as americans who love each other, who love our country, who will not destroy but will build. We owe it to the dead who are buried here gettysburg. We owe that to the living and the future generations yet to be born. You and i are part of a covenant, a common story of divisions overcome and hope renewed. If we do our part, if we stand together, if we keep faith with the past and with each other, then divisions in time will give way to a better dream of the future. This is our work. This is our dream. This is our mission. This is our pledge. We can end the hate and fear. We can be what we are at our best the United States of america. God bless you all. Thank you. We can do this. And may god protect our troops. [cheers and applause] thank you. Rock on [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org]
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