Kitty Pryde-Barton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
throughaphase) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2016-09-25 08:30 pm
throughaphase) wrote in fandomhigh2016-09-25 08:30 pm
Entry tags:
Firsthand History- Monday- 1st period
Class today was being held in a cemetery in the Danger Shop. It was crowded, full of soldiers and civilians, and somewhere in the middle of it, a man was speaking.
"Welcome to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863," Kitty began, keeping her voice a little quieter than usual because Danger Shop or not, someone was giving a speech and she didn't want to be rude.Also it always took place in the future. "Here's the really awful backstory to this: When the country was founded, there were already people in Africa being kidnapped, thrown on a ship to the States, and sold into slavery as property to do all the work in the fields and in the house. Most of the founding fathers had slaves. They were brought here, lived here, given new names by their 'masters', and raised families. Entire generations went on like this. And people thought it was fine, because they thought if they put a roof over a slave's head and gave them what they thought was good treatment, then there was no problem. It didn't matter that slaves could be beaten and mistreated, never allowed to live their own life or make their own decisions for themselves or their families, because they were property, not people.
"And then people started cluing in that hey, it's wrong to enslave people, and it's really wrong to do so because their skin color didn't match yours. There was a movement to ban slavery, and the northern states were in the process of ending it if they hadn't already, but there were some southern states that really weren't willing to give it up. The 1860 election had a very big focus on banning slavery, and after Abraham Lincoln was elected, the southern states seceded to become the Confederate States. So if you hear anything about the confederate flag these days, you'll get a very big clue as to why that's seen as problematic," Kitty added. "In 1861, the American Civil War began, between the northern Union army and the southern Confederate Army. It's America's bloodiest war, because it was us doing all the fighting. Over 655,000 people died, and 419,000 were wounded.
"The war would end in 1865, with a Union win. Slavery was abolished, the country was reunited and began the process of rebuilding. If you want to know more about this, there are plenty of books and movies I can recommend for you," Kitty offered. "And Lincoln is to this day widely regarded as the best president we've ever had, though he was assassinated in 1865, five days after the Confederates surrendered. Where we are now is Gettysburg, right in the middle of the war. There was a battle here four months ago, known as the war's turning point, and it was turned into a cemetery for those who had died here. Right now it's Edward Everett speaking. It's a two-hour speech, and they thought it would be a highlight of the ceremony. Instead you're going to hear one of the greatest speeches ever written in a minute, and it was written on an envelope."
"Welcome to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863," Kitty began, keeping her voice a little quieter than usual because Danger Shop or not, someone was giving a speech and she didn't want to be rude.
"And then people started cluing in that hey, it's wrong to enslave people, and it's really wrong to do so because their skin color didn't match yours. There was a movement to ban slavery, and the northern states were in the process of ending it if they hadn't already, but there were some southern states that really weren't willing to give it up. The 1860 election had a very big focus on banning slavery, and after Abraham Lincoln was elected, the southern states seceded to become the Confederate States. So if you hear anything about the confederate flag these days, you'll get a very big clue as to why that's seen as problematic," Kitty added. "In 1861, the American Civil War began, between the northern Union army and the southern Confederate Army. It's America's bloodiest war, because it was us doing all the fighting. Over 655,000 people died, and 419,000 were wounded.
"The war would end in 1865, with a Union win. Slavery was abolished, the country was reunited and began the process of rebuilding. If you want to know more about this, there are plenty of books and movies I can recommend for you," Kitty offered. "And Lincoln is to this day widely regarded as the best president we've ever had, though he was assassinated in 1865, five days after the Confederates surrendered. Where we are now is Gettysburg, right in the middle of the war. There was a battle here four months ago, known as the war's turning point, and it was turned into a cemetery for those who had died here. Right now it's Edward Everett speaking. It's a two-hour speech, and they thought it would be a highlight of the ceremony. Instead you're going to hear one of the greatest speeches ever written in a minute, and it was written on an envelope."
The Gettysburg Address
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. 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 can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 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 for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Re: The Gettysburg Address