What type of government does Lincoln refer to when he says government of the people by the people for the people?

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Background:

Most readers will be aware of this phrase from President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address in November 1863:

... But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

But Lincoln did not originate the expression. For example, in an 1850 speech to a New England Anti-Slavery Convention, Theodore Parker, an American preacher and social reformer, declared:

"...There is what I call the American idea...This idea demands, as the proximate organization thereof, a democracy, that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government after the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake, I will call it the idea of Freedom..."

Parker might have heard the expression from others such as British politician Benjamin Disraeli who expressed the sentiment in Vivian Grey (1826):

"...all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist."

Or politician Daniel Webster, who in a speech to the Senate in 1830 said:

"...It is, Sir, the people's Constitution, the people's Government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people. The people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law. We must either admit the proposition or dispute their authority."

A number of sources point to the prologue to John Wycliffe's 1384 translation of the Bible as the original source; quoting him as saying:

This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.

Wycliffe (c.1320-1384) was an English theologian and early proponent of reform in the Catholic Church. In 1384 he published what was possibly the first English translation of the complete Bible. Portions had been translated previously but there appears to be no firm evidence of a complete translation before Wycliffe.

However, while Wycliffe's intention in translating the Bible into English was so that it could be more widely read, it is unclear whether these words are actually to be found in his prologue. BookBrowse carried out some fairly cursory keyword searches on the modern translation at en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Wycliffite_Prologue and was unable to find a match.

Alphabetical list of expressions

Challenge yourself with BookBrowse Wordplays

“that these dead shall not have died in vain– that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” (U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863) It is one of the best known speeches in world history and perhaps one of the greatest and the most influential statements for any form of democracy.

Freedom and democracy are often deemed interchangeable but the two are certainly not synonymous and it can safely be premised that democracy is the institutionalization of freedom and constitution is the bulwark of democracy.

Now to a more pertinent question, What is constitution? The answer is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which an organization is governed making a clear demarcation of the responsibilities assigned to each individual responsible for running the organization.

“Two score and five years ago,” the founding fathers of Indian Society of Periodontology also envisioned a constitution for the society framing a set of rules and regulations guiding the administration of our society. Having spent some years in the formal structure of the society and looking at its functioning has convinced me no end as to how little significance has been attached into making vast number of society members aware of the salient features contained in this most influential governing document.

Almost the entire last decade spent within the society as an EC member and an office bearer, I have never come across any formal program/workshop/orientation lecture devoted to understanding our constitution even for the new incumbents, who happy and enthusiastic as they are to be a part of this august body continue to come up with one fanciful suggestion after another for changing certain workings of the society, completely ignorant and oblivious of the constitutional clauses behind it. The fact that the might of the constitutional mandate is required if any such suggested changes has to see the light of the day. What to talk of new members, even a number of semi-veterans like your's truly were also all at sea regarding the finer nuances enshrined in the constitution (till I started having a closer look at it that being a major part of my job and I am still learning), each trying to analyse it as per his/her own convenience and understanding or lack of it.

It is my perspective and privately many individuals agree to it that a lot of ills which have plagued the society in the past and continue to dog it even today could have been avoided had there been a complete understanding and willingness to practice constitution in its purest form. It should become a norm to send a digital copy of constitution to every member along with membership number. Every executive member and office bearer should take an oath of allegiance on our constitution and there should be orientation programs for a better comprehension of our holy book. Also head office through the EC should identify some of our learned veterans as resource persons to propagate the body and soul of our constitution to the general members.

As members of this most prestigious organization it is our beholden constitutional duty to do so for the coming generations of periodontists.

ISPlendidly Yours.

The words of Abraham Lincoln to honour the soldiers that sacrificed their lives in order “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” were spoken at Gettysburg, but these words apply as well to the countless soldiers that died for the cause of democracy in the following 150 years.

Democracy has become such a sacrosanct concept that even the harshest dictatorships, such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, call themselves a democracy. But what is democracy?

Was it democracy to give the British people the opportunity to vote about membership of the European Union after providing them with contradictory information about the consequences of leaving? Was it democracy to ask the opinion of the Dutch people about an Association Agreement with Ukraine for improper reasons? (The committee that took the initiative admitted that it did not care at all about Ukraine but wanted to use the referendum to destroy the European Union or drive the Netherlands out of the EU.)

Is it democracy when Dutch ministers shy away from telling the people that the Netherlands is giving up (for very good reasons) part of its sovereignty to the European Union because that would incite people to vote for anti-European parties? (See my column Who dares to be honest?)

Obviously, if politicians believe that voters cannot be trusted with the truth, democracy is seriously at risk. For a democracy to function it is essential that a government respects the people and takes them seriously, not only those that have voted for that government, but all people. Furthermore, in order to exercise their democratic rights properly, people should be informed as fully as possible.

Democracy is a form of conflict management within states, just as diplomacy is a form of conflict management between states. Both therefore usually lead to a compromise between different views and different perceived interests. That is certainly the case when a decision requires both agreement between and within states.

Democracy is a living system of government that can only prosper by being reinvented again and again. It can be strengthened by a referendum if a question can be answered by a simple yes or no. However, democracy is undermined when people are made to believe that a complicated question that involves the interests of different countries can be satisfactorily answered by a referendum in one of these countries. Neither the future of the relation between the EU and Ukraine, nor the future relation between the United Kingdom and the EU can be based on a simplistic yes or no.