"The new birth of freedom that Abraham Lincoln extolled in the Gettysburg Address required the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which amounted to a second founding. It was this second founding that made the first founding worthy of being saved. Much like the founders before them, those who ushered in a second founding learned from experience, working to improve an imperfect Constitution. At Gettysburg, Lincoln cast the nation as 'conceived in liberty' and 'dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal.' Lincoln's effort was to complete the 'unfinished work' of the founding generation. If Lincoln cast this 'unfinished work' as an effort to restore America to its foundations, to a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, this was an effort to return to something real, but that never actually existed—only the promise of it did."
George Thomas at The Bulwark discusses "America's Imperfect Founding."
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