In the opening sentence, Lincoln refers to the founding of the nation “fourscore and seven” - 87 - years earlier. Which of the following best explains Lincoln’s purpose in this opening?

By dating the nation’s founding to “fourscore and seven” years earlier, Lincoln points listeners back to the Declaration of Independence and its claim that all people are created equal. This reminds them of the ideals on which the country was established and frames the Civil War as a test of whether those ideals would endure. The best choice is “He wanted to remind people about what the nation’s founding ideals were.”

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