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By the time of the Gettysburg Address, in November 1863, the North was fighting for a 'new birth of freedom' to transform the Constitution written by the founding fathers, under which the United States had become the world's largest slaveholding country, into a charter of emancipation for a republic where, as the northern version of 'The Battle Cry of Freedom' put it, 'Not a man shall be a slave'.

— James M. McPherson James M. McPherson. The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom (2003)

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More quotes by James M. McPherson

If Lincoln had been a failure, he would have lived a longer life.

James M. McPherson. Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (2008)

Interpretations of the past are subject to change in response to new evidence, new questions asked of the evidence, new perspectives gained by the passage of time.

People are going to dislike you if you make a decision, even if it turns out to be the right one.

An Exchange With a Civil War Historian (1995)

The unending quest of historians for understanding the past — that is, 'revisionism' — is what makes history vital and meaningful.

The bottom line in the Civil War, after all is said and done, showed that every Confederate state was a slave state and every free state was a Union state. These facts were not a coincidence, and every Civil War soldier knew it.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James M. McPherson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.