Ko ētahi atu, tae atu ki a Allen C. Guelzo, te kaiwhakahaere o te Civil War Era studies i Gettysburg College i Pennsylvania, i whakaaro ko te kupu a Lincoln "e wha tekau ma whitu" he tohu ki te King James Version o te Bible's Psalms 90:10, i roto i te tangata's life span is given as "three sixty years and ten; and if by strength of reason they be fourscore years".Lincoln was probably influenced by Lajos Kossuth - the former governor of Hungary - who gave a speech before the Ohio State Legislature on February 1852: "The spirit of our age is Democracy. For all the people, and by all the people, without all the people. Nothing about the people! - What is democracy? [...] Question: What is democracy?
mō te iwi, nā te iwi katoa