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"The Maibach Fund supports citizen
understanding of and appreciation for the ideas and ideals upon which
the American Republic and Western Civilization have been built.”
Michael C.
Maibach
Established
in
2001
In Congress - The unanimous Declaration of the
thirteen United
States of America
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
–
July 4, 1776
When
in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
and to
assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
which
the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect
to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel
them to the separation.
We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That
to
secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just
powers from the consent of the governed…
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The Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania
-
November 19, 1863
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 cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate
-- we cannot 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.
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