He stood on a platform in the early afternoon of a cold November day only a few feet from the edge of Soldier’s National Cemetery. He was dizzy and feverish, suffering with the beginning of smallpox. It had been four months since the end of the bloody Battle of Gettysburg. And he delivered a two-minute speech that would be memorized by students for the next 150-plus years: “Four score and seven years ago....”

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address captured the essence of American democracy in its closing words, “...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” It characterized a type of government that was not simply on behalf of its citizens. It is one created by the people. Through the voting process, peaceful demonstrations, freedom of speech and press, and citizen influence on elected representatives, we, the people, create the governance we enjoy.

How would Lincoln’s speech have been worded if he had been talking about a business or enterprise?

 …