Our national ideal out-travel our experience, and all experience. We began our national career by setting all history at defiance—for that said, -A republic on a large scale cannot exist.? Our progress since has shown that we were right in refusing to be limited by the past. The political ideas of the nation are not transcendent, not empirical. Human history could not justify the Declaration of Independence and its large statements of the new idea: the nation went behind human history and appealed to human nature.

With Parker’s statement in mind, write an essay in which you argue whether in the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln -went behind human history and appealed to human nature.? As support, use evidence from Lincoln’s speech and from your own knowledge of history.