David, you have proven the essence of the quote better than anyone could have ever described it. And you weren't even trying... Oh, the irony... I love it!

Is this some kind of sick joke?

David: You don't seem to understand the quote... And if you think it is archaic, then the Constitution and everything our Founders stood and fought for is archaic... And while you're obsessing about a bunch of alleged socialists the fascists have been invading your house through the back door.

Bill had it backwards.... "The purpose of the People is to rein in the powers of the Government" - Now that sounds better, doesn't it?

...No going back to when the constitution was the supreme law of the land; no going back to when our freedoms and civil liberties were protected against tyrants like him. In short: No going back to America... Thank you, King George, for pointing this out. All this time I'd thought that our Founders had fought for something worth preserving... Thank you, your Majesty, for opening my eyes. How could I have ever doubted your endless wisdom. - Let despotism ring!

Anyone who parrots the lie that the "Patriot Act" is needed to protect us should take this quote to heart. .... But then again, those people are likely too dumb to understand...

We've taken more than a "single step" beyond these boundaries in the past, let's say, 150 years. It's time for the states to wake up and take back their constitutional powers and demand an amendment to re-affirm the absoluteness of the 10th Amendment. And since Congress won't cooperate willingly - we have to bypass Congress by forcing a Constitutional Convention (that's the part of Article V that they don't teach you and don't want you to know about)!

Exactly!

It's not so much whether the quote continues on, but that the "not" is omitted in the first part. Without the "not" this quote seems grammatically incoherent. That's why I would say it should be "Liberty of conscience is nowadays NOT only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavoring to propagate that belief as much as they can..."

Good old Abe had it right! That's exactly what's going on today - The country and all it stands for is being destroyed from within by a cabal of neo-cons. And the tragic part is that this destruction is being justified by claiming it necessary to protect us against the foreign enemy. The very enemy that, according to Lincoln here, would never be able to destroy us in the first place.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there is considerable debate about the insertion of the words "under God" as both of Lincolns handwritten drafts do NOT contain these words. These words were heard supposedly acording to eyewitness accounts only! And we all know how reliable those can be... So to all the Evangelicals gleaming with orgasmic joy when they talk of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: You ought to take it with a grain of salt.

So true. One of my favorites. And I think everyone knows which one we have today.

True Republicans of Goldwater's kind are a rapidly dying breed. The party has been taken over by Christo-Fascist neo-cons. Today's Rebublican Party is a shameful disgrace to icons like him.

I love this quote. It is logic at its purest. Maybe that's exacly why religiously blinded people have always trouble with Logic and Reason.

The first part seems genuine and as some have shown here there seems to be a source for it. But this first part is not what makes the quote controversial. It's the second part that is completely bogus. Govern the world with God and the Bible? Excuse me, but that sounds like a typical LCI (Later Christian Insertion). Washington would have never said this. And not only the God/Bible part, but none of the Founders would have ever wanted to "govern the world" - that's only the goal of neo-cons. So that proves where this came from. I'm shocked that such a bogus quote would be put here on Liberty Tree.