"Four score and seven years ago" sounds longer than "eighty-seven years ago", so maybe Lincoln used it because he was embarassed that it only took the US eighty-seven years to break into civil war.,(reply>), A lot of the constitution feels like "We'll write it down, but just be vague enough that our later generations will get it and follow through. Right?" @TheKewlPerson,(reply>), The writing was on the wall when the nation was founded with many people in the north fiercely anti-slavery, while the south's entire economy relied on it. The founding fathers didn't want to deal with it at the moment to avoid conflict, and they assumed it would just naturally die because it was becoming less and less profitable. Of course then the cotton gin was invented thus making slavery profitable again which let the issue boil up for another 50 years before exploding into the civil war.,(reply>), I can just imagine Lincoln going "Faaaaaaakeeeen 'ell boys. Eighty seven ? Faaaaak meeee."<br>And that's it, back to ending slavery for mostly economic reasons.,(reply>), @Gwen "like come on guys, I thought we all agreed that slavery is bad? Just get over it already!",(reply>), "we couldnt even last four score and seven years... are you kidding me.... couldnt we have at least waited five scores before this happened? i mean seriously"