The question is not whether Lincoln truly meant 'government of the people' but what our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term 'people' to actually mean. In 1863 it did not mean your mother or your grandmother, and it did not mean you and me. Thus America's problem is not its betrayal of 'government of the people,' but the means by which 'the people' acquired their names.
( Ta-Nehisi Coates )
[ Between the World and Me ]
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