Comment by thaumasiotes

7 days ago

> Consider:

>> Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

> This would not be improved by rewriting it as something like:

>> Now the Confederacy has engaged us in a great civil war [...]

It's technically possible to parse "we are engaged" as a verb in the passive voice.

But it's an error to think that's how you should parse it. That clause is using the active verb be, not the passive verb engage; it's fully parallel to "Now we are happy".