responsible for people later on thinking that the speech was a newspapers, i said, people like henry long wordsworth longfellowreally prominent people soon after the speech were writing glowing things about it saying what a great speech at was. host: one of the things we know that lincoln thought about back then was he was worried about the future of the government of the people, by the people, for the people. pew, as ofng to the 2017, 96 of 177 countries with populations of at least 500,000 were democracies of some kind, and only 13% were not. do you think lincoln would be less worried or more worried about the future of democratic governments today? guest: i think he would be astounded at the progress we have made in many ways. he and frederick douglass together, in many ways they could come back today, would be delighted with all the progress we have made in civil rights and other freedoms. as they looked out around the world, the march of democracy has been amazing. but i think they would also caution us again that every generation has to rededicate themselves to those founding principles. lincoln uses wor