The Gettysburg Address - 150 Years Later
Nov. 19, 2013
Ralph Mann
150 years ago today President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the bestknown speeches in American history at the dedication of the Soldiers National
Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
“Four score and seven years ago…” began the short speech that would define
an embattled president, a nation struggling with slavery and a war that was
close to tearing it apart, says Ralph Mann, CU-Boulder history professor.
CUT 1 “He is taking the opportunity to define the war, to define what the
United States is and to define his political philosophy and what he hopes, I
think, to achieve in the future.” (:14)
Many historians have identified the Battle of Gettysburg as the turning point
in the American Civil War. The Union victory forever sent Southern forces back
into Virginia, never to threaten the North again. Mann says, Lincoln
understood the importance of that victory and tied the sacrifice made by the
soldiers at Gettysburg to the sacrifice Americans will to make to preserve the
union.
CUT 2 “The thing that shows up in this speech again and again is the word
dedication. (404) We are going to dedicate a cemetery but we can’t because
they dedicated it, consecrated it, the soldiers themselves. But the country is
dedicated to this proposition - we must dedicate ourselves to complete this
great work that they have advanced and this dedication is to saving the
republican form of government.” (:28)
Lincoln also reiterated the principles of human equality espoused by the
Declaration of Independence and that the war was not only a struggle to
preserve the union but also to a new birth of freedom that would bring
equality to all Americans, says Mann.
CUT 3 “The starting point is Jefferson’s famous, ‘We hold these truths to be
self evident, that all men are created equal, endowed with their creator with
certain inalienable rights and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ When
Lincoln used that, the pursuit of happiness to him meant civil rights for white
and black. (:19) And Lincoln had said several times before he was the
president and during his presidency, ‘ You can’t ultimately save the nation
without destroying slavery.’ “(:29)
Mann says Lincoln also saw the American Civil War as a struggle to save
democratic ideals and hope, not just for the United States, but for all
republican forms of government.
CUT 4 “A new nation dedicated to this proposition that all men are created
equal and the war is a test as to whether that nation, or any nation based on
those values - a republic where the people have a voice, and the people’s
interests come first - can survive. (:20) He thought the American Republic was
the only legitimate one at that time and if that republic is destroyed the
whole idea of a republican government will be destroyed. America is the
world’s last great hope and so the future of this kind of government is at
stake.” (:35)
Despite the historical and cultural importance of the speech, the exact
wording and location of the speech are disputed. According to Abraham
Lincoln Online, there are five known copies of the speech in Lincoln's
handwriting, each with a slightly different text and named for the people who
first received them. Two copies apparently were written before delivering the
speech; the remaining ones were produced months later for soldier benefit
events.
-CUThe Gettysburg Address
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.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any
nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a
great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that
field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can
not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled
here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The
world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never
forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here
to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation,
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863
(The Colonel Alexander Bliss Copy)