Government of the people by the people and for the people that shall not perish from the earth. On this anniversary we want to get your thoughts not only on the speeches that were told that end, but what it means for our country today. Heres how you can do so if you want to give us your thoughts on the gettysburg address via twitter you can do so. As always, you can email us at span. Org. I hear some of the speech that was delivered back on november 19, 1863. It is by president lincoln. It is rather frustrated dedicated to the great task remaining before us that we take increased devotion to the cause that they gave their last full measure of devotion. Perhaps you have thoughts about these lines are presently can delivered back then. Social media is available to as well. Facebook is it with you can do so. We had a few people posting on this as we started this morning. Ourbook. Com cspan is facebook page. You can also tweak your thoughts to that cspan wj. The Associated Press takes a speech thatg the defined a nation. Thousands expected to gather today in gettysburg to commemorate lincolns word. Again, you may have thoughts on the speech as well. For first 45 minutes we will look at other topics, but the gettysburg address is what we want you to comment on this morning. The phone numbers will be on your screen. Again, reach out to us on social media, two. Here is james from seattle, washington. James, good morning. At first thought, what does the gettysburg address mean to you today . As an african american, the gettysburg address is just the beginning. If you read the bill of rights and the constitution, we are trying to form a more perfect union. During this time in history, we see a lot of conflict and people can pairing to the civil war. It is because United States is becoming a more diversified country. We have more blacks. A white person cannot just get ed. Ct di they must now get other people to try to vote for them. Nine out of 10 of the people that voted for him was white. Imagine if we had a country that white people were allowed like to say we have inalienable rights that were given to us by god. Black people did not have these rights. We had to fight, we were oppressed and we had to struggle for these rights. Thank you. Guest host joseph next. Weve got something really exciting happening in my home county and the state of georgia. Were trying to bring the last caller was very interesting. We want to make our county the most positive county in the world and george of most positive county. We have people like commerce meant tom graves are helping us and bury loudermilk and david pennington. We want to bring people together and encourage people. Pedro, be the best you can be. Be committed to excellence. We all need to come together and be the best person we can be. Dream big. That aside, your daddies what is the impact of the gettysburg address on your today . It just energized me to try to be the best person i can be and it just was a great address, pedro. I cant tell you, just fired me up and i think it fired all the American People up for it i think its still far as me up today. I really appreciate cspan. You do a great job. Host that is joe from georgia. We are engaged in a great civil war, president lincoln said. Philip, from boulevard, california on our democrats line. Caller hi i just wanted to call you today and hopefully we could address this magnifico day for us and embrace our president a little more. ,e need that at this time especially with all these hurricanes and stuff that is happening around our country and around the world. We need to come together as , republicans and start embracing our president a little more. I dont see that yet. You called the speech a magnificent day. Why is that specifically . Caller we needed and we need republicans to hear this. 150th anniversary of the gettysburg address. This is the Richmond Times dispatch. Milton is up next in san jose california, independent line. I just wanted to say im glad the north won and i think union is greater than liberty. I know there are a lot of people that might disagree, but we live in a beautiful country and it think it is because we are united in spite of our differences. Sometimes that means we have to forsake a little bit of liberty for a better cause. It is for a country, for our patriotism, it is for what connects us as people. Think that is a beautiful thing. What influenced you think the speech had in our current day . Caller i think right now we live in a time where people are very concerned about the state and liberty. I dont fault anybody for being upset about that, but we are a country. We have a unity, we have a patriotism, we should stick to it. That means sometimes accepting that just because you are getting your way, you have to have some faith that this beautiful country of ours which has survived over two centuries and has been to some hard times, but we are still here. I am a young man and i am pumped. And tomm joins us not is from Fort Lauderdale on our republican line. Hi. Gettysburgee the overcoming or the majorne of reasons for slavery and that is why ignorance. When i say white ignorance i mean that even some of the best scholars of the day said that a 3 5 of a humans being. That was totally ignorant. But yet some of the most learned people in our nation believed that. This is not taught in our schools and i think the reason it is not taught is that it has thattain understanding makes the advent of slavery somewhat understandable. People cant really swallow that. I dont disparage anything that black people say about slavery and civil rights, but there are aspects of the advent of slavery that is factual and people need to hear. Another thing that is not taught didchools is that slavery not begin in the United States. Slavery slaves were not imported to the United States by colonists. Slavery began in africa. Do you think that the colonists knew where to go in africa and where to capture black slaves . From mary is joining us magnolia, alabama on the independent line. Caller i would just like your listeners before the, not the speech to read it. Understood what the sacrifice was for this country and to bring it back together. He was going to reach his hand and reconstruct it, to bring us together. It was unity. He was so devastated in his mind and his soul that it took so many people to die and sacrifice for this country. We are remembering john kennedy another important president. We should start understanding the government is to work for us. We dont work for the government and we must ask what our country we must ask where we can do for our country, not where country can do for us. And lincoln, god rest him and god bless him for what he stood togetherow he kept his and how to this day 150 years later he is still inspiring us. Our president today is sitting in the white house and not even going to gettysburg and andgnizing are to president what is to bring us together and unite us. From theres merit alabama, one of the folks at is making this major Awareness Campaign of the duesberg address. Ken burns has a National Outreach of the campaign is reaching out to all of the president s to read the gettysburg address. Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on continent. Now we are engaged in a great civil war. We are met on a great battlefield 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 cannot dedicate we cannot consecrate the brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it. Note ororld will little long remember what we say here but it can never forget what they did here. To beget to be dedicated here to the unfinished work 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 photo gave the last full thatre of devotion we highly resolve that these dead should not have died in vain that this nation, under god should have a new birth of freedom. , ofnd that this government the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth. Mr. Burns, thanks for joining us. Guest im very pleased to join. In april pbs is going to be showing a film called the address about wars of the Greenwood School in tiny putney, vermont. These boys are asked each year to memorize and then publicly recite the gettysburg address him a formidable task for anyone. Is a minefield for them and yet they do it and do it heroically. In the editing of this film had the idea that maybe we should left,e entire country, right and center to do it. We live in really fractured and very few things remind us of why we agree to cohere as a people. There is too much for both and not a few known. There is too muchpluribus unum. Ordinaryum folks are contributing things at great variety. Stadiums are setting it, the u. S. Soccer team, schools from alabama and utah, all over the place. People in their 90s, little kids arising and resetting the gettysburg address, which is quite exciting. Host as a understand it youre heading to ginsburg today . Guest im pulling up not to the Visitor Center where we will be filming citizens recording the address for us and talking about the meeting on this important day, the 150th anniversary i do want to respond to a caller from alabama about the president. I had an opportunity to speak with him before he recorded the address for us. His only reason for not being there is modesty. He had spent so much time in august dealing with the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther king speech that he didnt want to feel that he was appropriating yet another one. This is not through lack of interest. He would love to be and he would love know better than to be here. This is about citizens coming here to these hallowed grounds, to the sacred that it feels. I think it is a much more interesting back story to that. The Washington Post said at the last president to attend this event was rutherford hayes. Is that true . That is so interesting. Talking to folks getting a sense from them about what the gettysburg address means. What is your favorite part of the address . It is so hard to say. Theres certainly a bit of irony in the fact that the world will little note or long remember what we say here but will never forget what they did here. In some ways our collective historical amnesia has actually forgotten the details of battle. In fact we have spent more time remembering the extraordinary president ial poetics of abraham lincoln. There is in a stunning statistic i learned that 83 of College Graduates having diploma in hand thet tell you which speech phrase of buyin for the people should not perish from the earth comes from. That tells us we have a lot to do as a society, as a people, as a policy. We are very good at arguing with one another, we are very good at forgetting the genius of our country was compromised. But we need to investor sells in our history and all the personal as elective blessings that flow from our extraordinary history. Gettysburgthe address is doubling down on the declaration of independence. Thomas jefferson wrote that all men are created equal. He owned more than 100 human to freend never thought of any one of them. He set in motion an american narrative that would eventually fourscore and five years later erupt in a great civil war. Lincoln traveled four and half months after the greatest battle on american soil, 10,000 dead, 56,000 casualties, to say we really do believe in what the declaration says. We now know that this is what a vision is. That wemarching orders still use to this day. The fact that he did it in two , that hend 272 words did with such poetry grace, that he did it without proper names and without the usual celebratory bombast and belligerence that comes with speeches about battles, that he force that onch 9 11,rst anniversary of t that the first words of his address, that that they had anything to do with 9 11, but because they were the glue that. Eld us together that words could be medicine. And that is the importance of his message. Burns documentary set to air in april. Pedro, we hopee, that you and all your listeners will memorize the gettysburg address. Exercise,t some but i want all adults a do it. You will tape it up to mirror in. He morning once you have intuited it like singing in a church you will feel really great. Host ken burns, thank you very much. As far as he hundred 50th anniversary, you can see what they take in. That will air on thanksgiving day. You can find out more on our American History tv website when you go to our cspan website. Back to you, the viewers. On the significance to you of the gettysburg address. Here ken burns give his spots. Hummers will be on the screen. Alameda, california. Good morning, pedro. Contrary to earlier from your callers on to thank the cable providers for cspan. Calling again. Washington journal never seems to disappoint. The first collimated all racial and talked about lax fighting for the freedom. It was white republican males who volunteered to go down and liberate and free a bunch of slaves and never met, never knew. No republican ever owned a slave. I think that all Young AfricanAmerican Students should be brought to places like , antietam, bull run , and see the sacrifices they made for people they never knew. Hitler made the same mistake when he was so confident that a american losing playboys or get off their couches to save a bunch of friends people. No republican ever owned a slave. Caller hi, this is offered. I had to memorize the gettysburg address in middle school and what ite to me showed to me was that we have always been an exceptional nation. I realized we are an exceptional a credoecause we are nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. That truly makes United States, our republic, unique among. Ations of the world of the 18 century, france tried, but they are on their fifth republic. Lenin tried in 1917 with the and that lasted about 75 years. So if you ask what a frenchman or china men or and the theyieves, cant say. I think that is what makes our republic exceptional. Three thoughts on the state of the union especially in the light of the hundred 50th anniversary of the gettysburg address. From vancouver, canada. This is randall. Caller it has been years. Situation i a little angry with now is because the United States is in a situation in assertt is creating i and understand subject. I dont appreciate the fact that americans like to honor and celebrate tragedies in their history. There are never more americans killed in any war than the civil war. Brother against brother, father against son, we around the world are wondering why is that happening in the United States continuously and it continues to go on, war after war, continuous wars . The rest of the world is getting tired of it. Your neighbors or to the north, we are getting sick and uninsured also. Im sure his mexican nation is also targeted to. Im sorry to be so angry, but i am. Thank you. Host walter up next from bridgeton, new jersey, independent line. Caller the caller who just called from canada makes a very good point. You call ohas two called and said with the republicans own slaves, the Republican Party at that time was basically a part of the north. The seven people were democrats. We should make the civil war a partisan issue or a racial issue. It was something that was done and it was a tragedy and we should not still be fighting the civil war. Host what you think about the speech . Is a greats beach speech. He was trying to unify the country but it seems like the country is still not unified. Partisan they, racially or regionally. Here is darrell from nashville, georgia on the democrats line. Caller im a veteran. Just want people to know that ive been listening to a lot of callers calling in. We need to bring this country together. Im a christian. We need to start praying and me need to start asking god to bring us together as one. Have hate in your heart if youre a child of god . When you start praying, stop seeking man. Darrell, your thoughts on the gettysburg address it saw specifically. What are they . [indiscernible] we are still in slavery. Two thoughts from facebook this morning. 70 people making the thoughts on facebook did you can continue the conversation there as well. Facebook. Com cspan is how you can do that or it from the front page of the wall street journal takes a look at jpmorgan. Saying thatick is the decision came on monday. It is a 13 billion settlement that resolves a number of legal headaches for the u. S. Bank, clearing the way for public announcement as soon as today. They added that the final piece holding up the deal is for billion dollars worth of aid to distressed homeowners was completed on monday. The historic settlement and several investigations and lawsuits targeting soured mortgage bonds issued before the financial crisis and amounts of the biggest combination of fines is a 100 50th anniversary of the gettysburg address. You may have heard our guest ken burns talk about on the phone, we are getting your thoughts on it as well on this day and what it means to you. The thought of lincoln, what he said today and what it meant back then and what it means today. Steve from pennsylvania, republican line. Good morning. Actually, i am calling on the independent online. Still celebrated and talked about and discussed by so many of us. It is a true testament to great words and great men. Their words live forever. One of the comments i wanted to talk about was that one of the callers talked about the learned , considering the slaves as 3 5 of a person. My understanding that the reason that the 3 5 as a person was the governmentn is being set up to be based upon the proportion of population local how many representatives for states slave states the slavehave population counted. The northern states insisted they should not be counted because they did not have the full rights and the full voting cap abilities as the freeman. So the compromise, which is a dirty word in todays government with the Current Conditions in washington, but the compromise was that 3 5 of the population would be counted for the proportional representation of the people. Had his place in history. The people of the United States, for the most part, are much better off. You can argue that it is much as much of a great con