I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal — equal in “certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This they said, and this they meant.  — 1858

My Take – Racism or whatever -ism is one of the more ignorant things I can learn about someone.  I judge people by their actions, not their inherited traits.  If you’re a black man who takes care of his business and stays out of mine, I have no fight with you.  If you’re a white man who makes his life my problem, then you’re a jerk, and will be treated accordingly.  In other words, I sort the sheep from the goats individually, and don’t pay attention to which field they came out of.

I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. — 1862

My Take – Flexibility and openness to good criticism and new ideas are the key to success in just about anything.  I won’t compromise core principles like ‘Women and children first!’, but I will listen when someone tells me I’m messing up or shows me a different path that still leads to a desired goal.

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 battle-field 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. — 1863

My Take – I can’t really add much to this.  We don’t make days like Independence Day or Memorial Day sacred. That was done long before we were born.  It is our task to take the rights and privilege that have been handed down to us and make something out of them.