President Abraham Lincoln and President John F. Kennedy both made speeches addressing the problems they believed the United States were facing at their corresponding times in which they were president of the nation. They both spoke about the nation and how the nation was powerful if they united and helped one another as well as stating that they needed to fight for their nation. However, in Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, he speaks more about the people or the nation and how they will all be able to win the battle they have been fighting for. On the contrary, Kennedy talks more about how he will be able to lead the nation and the people of the nation towards solving the problems they were facing. Kennedy was more directly speaking about himself as leader rather than Lincoln who was more subtle about it and involved the people more. Lincoln believed that the problem that needed to be solved was no more discrimination and for there to be equality for all. In the beginning of his address he starts off with “…Our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Starting off with this line demonstrates that Lincoln’s address would be focused mainly on the equality of all people. He later goes on to state at the end of his address “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation… 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.” With Lincoln ending his address on this note, it goes to show that he believed that the U.S has not yet fully addressed this problem and that it would be a long process. Present day, it can be seen that there is still a fight going on for equality and any form of discrimination which the U.S has not fully addressed though the many Black Lives Matter protests and the spikes in police brutality as well as hate crimes. Kennedy in his Inaugural speech gives hope to the American people that they soon will be able to achieve peace and progress. Kennedy states that he will “support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.” Kennedy, by “any foe” referred to the communist countries such as the Soviet Union. Though Kennedy states this, he is rational and reaches out to the Soviet Union in his address, expressing his desire to reduce tensions stating “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” Kennedy also goes on to store hope in the people by suggesting “both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction” which referred to him asking there be peace between the U.S and the Soviet Union in fear of a nuclear holocaust which at the time was a very common and real fear. Kennedy made this speech because just like Lincoln he believed that the U.S was still in a very long process of restoring peace. Present time, it can be seen that there has been some type of restoration of peace with some nations however the U.S still has a long way to go to restore complete peace, if that is possible, not only from foreign nations but within its own nation as well.

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