Lincoln's Big "Proposition" Bet on Equality

By Ed Epstein

Washington D.C.

Oct. 14, 2025

Big-time sports betting didn’t exist in Abraham Lincoln’s time – the mid-19^th century – yet he made a “proposition” wager that some day America would live up to its founding promise in the Declaration of Independence that all people are created equal.

A proposition bet in today’s booming market for legal sports betting covers some long-shot, idiosyncratic wagers – such as whether a football, basketball, hockey or soccer game will go into overtime, or whether an NFL quarterback will throw for more than 250 yards, say, in a game. Or how long will the singing of the Star Spangled Banner take before a game?

So it’s easy to imagine that Lincoln, in his momentous Gettysburg Address in November 1863, understood that America had work to do to live up to “the proposition that all men are created equal.” That’s why in that same 272-word speech he called for a “rebirth of freedom,” meaning that the country had to return to the promise of the Declaration. By November 1863 Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the almost four million black slaves in the 11 states that had seceded from the Union to try to preserve slavery and he had called for the enlistment of free African American men into the federal Army.

But he knew that was just the beginning. As historian Lucas E. Morel wrote in his book “Lincoln and the American Founding”:  “Only by remembering the founding principle of human equality and therefore aspiring to have the government protect its citizens equally, regardless of color or any other arbitrary characteristic, would the United States of America be ‘forever worthy of the saving’ (in Lincoln’s words) and continue to stand as a beacon of hope for humanity the world over.”

Lincoln’s idea and challenge to ensuing generations have resonated since his time. In November 1989, on the 126^th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, New York Gov. Mario Cuomo make remarks at Gettysburg.

Of Lincoln he said, “Until the day he was martyred he fought and planned and prayed to make the words of the Declaration a way of life.

“Lincoln came to believe that the great promise of the founding fathers was one that had only begun to be realized with the founding fathers themselves. He understood that from the beginning it was a promise that would have to be fulfilled in degrees. Its embrace would have to be widened over the years, step by step, sometimes painfully, until finally it included everybody,” Cuomo said.