"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
In its conception is very much was an experiment. “A republic, if you can keep it” so to say.
This is what people mean by that:
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
In its conception is very much was an experiment. “A republic, if you can keep it” so to say.
They’d already failed the experiment before the ink dried: 34 out of 47 founders owned slaves. I guess the natives weren’t too equal, either. Oops!