The Meaning of the Gettysburg Address

[MaddieM]

Everyone has made excellent points. I would just suggest that perhaps no civilization will ever reach the perfect ideal of equality? I'm not suggesting that we should not attempt to reach it, just that it is a Utopian principle that may not be within reach.

Don't we also recognize that Lincoln himself was more intent on preserving the Union than in obtaining equality until well into the beginning of the Civil War?

I may be completely barking up the wrong tree..but I can't help thinking that all those lives lost were a heavy price to pay for ending slavery. Surely there could have been some other way, less hostile and more negotiative?