Abraham Lincoln and Thoreau

There are some similarities in philosophies between Abraham Lincoln and Henry David Thoreau. In the opening line of the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln says, speaking of the nation, "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" (Lincoln). Lincoln starts off his speech by stating that our nation was conceived in liberty (Lincoln). For him to start off his speech like that, shows that liberty was a standard that he expected to be upheld in the United States of America, and he was bringing that to everyone's attention to remind them of that aspect of their country (Lincoln). Henry David Thoreau was also a strong believer in liberty. He had very distinguishable opinions about liberty and believed that all men should be free, as was the opinion of Lincoln (Thoreau) (Lincoln). In the closing sentence of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, he states that the nation is "under God" and "shall have a new birth of freedom" (Lincoln). The two mentions of freedom in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address were strategically placed in the first sentence, and the last sentence to show importance. Lincoln favored freedom and placed freedom withing the address strategically to portray that the address had much to do with the matter of freedom versus slavery (Lincoln).

Both Lincoln and Thoreau spoke out against slavery (Lincoln) (Thoreau). Although both men disagreed with slavery and confronted the issue publicly, both did it in a very different manner. Thoreau was very adamant about making sure he was heard when it came to an issue of injustice (Thoreau). Thoreau was very up front about his issue with slavery and was not going to go down without a fight (Thoreau). He made a very public scene by not paying his poll taxes, he was even arrested because of it (Thoreau). Thoreau was very vocal about his opinion, but did not actually end up accomplishing much to help his cause (Thoreau). Although he, and everyone else, knew how he felt about slavery, he did not actually do much about it. He tended to be all talk, whereas Lincoln confronted his issue by directly stating the facts to his audience and expecting reactions (Lincoln). But he actually did not see much change for the cause in his lifetime either.

"Avalon Project - Gettysburg Address." Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy. Web. 08 Feb. 2012. .

Borade, Gaynor. "Summary and Significance of the Gettysburg Address." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 08 Feb. 2012. .

"Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.