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On Nov. 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the greatest speeches in American history, the Gettysburg Address. It opened “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.”

On Tuesday, Eric Schmitt, the junior senator from Missouri, declared that Lincoln was wrong.

“What is an American?” This was the question Schmitt posed at the fifth annual National Conservatism Conference in Washington. His answer is that the nation is fundamentally not based on the idea of equality or freedom or any other ideal. Nor is it accessible to peo

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