Who is the leader who said 'Government of the people, for the people by the people'?

• A. Franklin D. Roosevelt
• B. Abraham Lincoln
• C. Thomas Jefferson
• D. George Washington

Answer: (B)

Democracy rests on the idea that the people hold sovereign power and that government exists to serve them. The familiar line is from Abraham Lincoln, spoken in the Gettysburg Address of 1863, delivered during the Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg. In that address Lincoln framed the Union as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, a pledge that the nation must endure so that governance remains by and for ordinary citizens rather than controlled by a privileged few. While Washington, Jefferson, and Roosevelt played pivotal roles in American history, this particular wording is Lincoln’s and is most closely associated with him.