(Note: My annual tribute to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, originally posted in 2011...)
Today marks one of the most memorable speeches ever given by an American President. One hundred and forty eight years ago, President Abraham Lincoln gave remarks at the dedication of the National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Lincoln was not the keynote speaker of the day, that honor fell upon Edward Everett, who was a famous politician, educator and public speaker of the day.
Everett spoke for two hours before President Lincoln gave his address, which last about two minutes. Everett then famously sent Lincoln a note of admiration on his speech, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes."
The text of the 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.
A. Lincoln November 19, 1863
Actor Sam Waterston performing the Gettysburg Address...
The only known picture of President Lincoln at Gettysburg...
(Thanks to Tom Piselli for the reminder...)
NOTE: I've read several very good books about Abraham Lincoln over the last 18 months, here's my reading list...
Team Of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
A. Lincoln - A biography by Ronald C. White
Bloody Crimes - The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Chase for Jefferson Davis by James L. Swanson
Chasing Lincoln's Killer - by Robert Swanson
Manhunt - James Swanson
Sources:
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