Gettysburg Address
In Lincoln at Gettysburg, Garry Wills notes the similarity between Lincoln's speech and Pericles's Funeral Oration during the Peloponnesian War (James McPherson and Gore Vidal also note this). Pericles' speech begins with remembering honored people: "I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like the present". This is very much like the Gettysburg Address's famous beginning. In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln had begun by speaking of how "our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation". He then praises their State's firm democracy: "If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all". He honors the dead's sacrifice: "Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonour, but met danger face to face". He also warmly encourages the living to continue to fight for true democracy: "You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue".