Gettysburg Address

US President Abraham Lincoln was asked to speak at the November 1863 dedication ceremony for the National Cemetery of Gettysburg, which was on the site of one of the most horrific and decisive battles of the Civil War. The president was not the keynote speaker at the ceremony, but his brief remarks that day—totaling just 272 words—were so impactful that the address is considered to be one of the greatest speeches in American history. It appealed to the principles of human equality and freedom espoused in the Declaration of Independence and tied them to the strife, sacrifices, and potential consequences of the Civil War. President Lincoln called for preservation of the hard-won union formed almost a century earlier in 1776 and preservation of its model for government of the people, by the people, and for the people. President Lincoln’s inspirational oration became known as the Gettysburg Address.

Background

In the first days of July 1863, invading Southern soldiers under the command of Confederate General Robert E. Lee clashed with northern forces commanded by Union General George G. Meade in a fierce battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The number of casualties (dead, wounded, or missing) suffered on both sides during the three-day battle was staggering. In the end, some 51,000 soldiers—28,000 from Confederate forces and 23,000 from Union troops—became casualties of the Battle of Gettysburg before Lee’s army finally fell into retreat toward Virginia, serving a debilitating defeat to the Confederacy.

Following the standard practice of the day, the tens of thousands of Union soldiers killed at Gettysburg were buried swiftly on the battleground, often in unmarked or poorly marked graves. During the first few months after the battle, a local lawyer named David Wills organized a massive cleanup of the combat site and graveyard. After that, Wills directed his efforts toward establishing a national cemetery at that location. Official dedication of the new cemetery was set for October 23, 1863, but it was postponed until the following month when the featured speaker, renowned orator and statesman Edward Everett, requested more time to prepare his speech for the occasion. Everett was the one who invited President Lincoln to speak at the dedication ceremony for the new national cemetery.

While the war continued to rage on, the dedication ceremony took place on the morning of November 19, 1863, with roughly 15,000 individuals in attendance. Everett was the first to speak and recited a two-hour speech about the significance of the battle. President Lincoln’s oration followed and lasted approximately two minutes. In his speech, Lincoln explained that the soldiers buried at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to uphold the ideals of the nation’s founding fathers and a government of the people, by the people, for the people. He went on to say that the Civil War was the biggest challenge to those principles and to the continuity of the fledgling nation built on a foundation of freedom and unity.

Impact

President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address contained key premises that were not novel in and of themselves. What infused the message with such potency was the positioning of the premises, how they were put into context. President Lincoln’s contention that the Declaration of Independence, not the US Constitution, expressed the truest intention of the nation’s founding fathers’ was a radical idea at the time. During that period, a significant number of slave owners were declaring themselves to be true Americans, rationalizing that the Constitution did not expressly prohibit slavery. President Lincoln, on the other hand, asserted that the unified nation created in 1776 was based on the proposition that all men are equal. It is a widely accepted interpretation today, but back in 1863 President Lincoln’s perspective on the underlying intent was considered very radical. It was the first time that the Declaration of Independence had been construed in that light. His remarks redefined the Civil War, positioning it as a fight not only for national unity but also for the principle of human equality.

There are five known copies of the influential speech, which begins with the famous words, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation," that are in President Lincoln’s own handwriting. There are slight variations within the text of each copy. Two of the copies were drafted prior to the speech, one was likely used by President Lincoln as his reading copy while delivering the speech, and two copies were written months later to be read at events benefiting soldiers who were still embroiled in fighting. The benefit readings were intended to serve as a reminder and inspiration about what the soldiers were fighting for and what there was to lose if they were defeated.

On November 20, the day after the dedication of the cemetery, newspapers across the nation included the transcript of President Lincoln’s speech. Initial reporting and reaction were generally divided along political loyalties. Republicans, for example, applauded the speech, and Democrats considered it inappropriate and said it lacked sufficient substance to fit the historic occasion.

In the ensuing decades, the Gettysburg Address became one of the most well-known and most frequently quoted speeches in US history. Following the assassination of President Lincoln in April 1865, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts gave a eulogy to the fallen leader in which he stated that the speech at Gettysburg had such colossal impact, immediately and in perpetuity, that it had in fact become more important than the action that took place on the battlefield. Sumner said that the world would never forget the words and the sentiment expressed that day in the address at Gettysburg, and so far, that has held true.

Bibliography

Boritt, Gabor. The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows. New York: Simon, 2006. Print.

Daley, James. "Abraham Lincoln: The Gettysburg Address." History’s Greatest Speeches. Mineola: Dover, 2013. 115–16. Print.

Johnson, Martin P. Writing the Gettysburg Address. Lawrence: UP of Kansas, 2013. Print.

Olson, Steven P. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: A Primary Source Investigation. New York: Rosen, 2005. Print.

Peatman, Jared. The Long Shadow of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2013. Print.

Schwartz, Barry. "The New Gettysburg Address: A Study in Illusion." The Lincoln Forum: Rediscovering Abraham Lincoln. Eds. John Y. Simon, Harold Holzer, and Dawn Ruark. New York: Fordham UP, 2002. 160–86. Print.

Steers, Edward, and Harold Holzer. "The ‘Lost’ Draft of the Gettysburg Address." Lincoln Legends: Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated with Our Greatest President. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2007. 115–24. Print.

Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America. New York: Simon, 2012. Print.