Abraham Lincoln’s renowned opening to his Gettysburg Address, “Four score and seven years ago,” mused about our nation’s beginnings while pondering its mortality. The phrase references Psalm 90’s contrast between God’s everlasting nature and the lifespan of man, which the passage describes as “three score years and ten.”

Lincoln’s use of similar language in his opening at Gettysburg draws attention to a meditation of his that is especially worth revisiting today — that of the lifespan of a nation.