Abraham Lincoln: The Gettysburg Address (1863)

Introduction

Lincoln supposedly drafted his short speech on the train ride to Gettysburg. He travelled there in mid-November 1863 for a solemn occasion: the dedication of the national cemetery honoring the many who died during the bloody battle of July 1-3, 1863. The Union victory was a turning point in the Civil War. It began a sustained campaign of Union forces defeating the Confederate army throughout the country.

On that battlefield, as Lincoln said, so many gave their “last full measure of devotion” to the preservation of the United States. Lincoln honored the dead by also honoring the heritage of the United States, a nation “conceived” in liberty and dedicated to equality. A nation consumed by war to complete what he called the “unfinished” work of the country toward a “new birth of freedom” to secure government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

In the speech, Lincoln predicted that the world “would not long remember what we said here.” He was wrong about that. Both Americans and aspiring people around the globe instantly recognize his opening words, “Four score and seven years ago….” One million visit the sacred ground of Gettysburg each year, paying respect to those who fell and to Lincoln’s tribute to liberty and equality for all people.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

• Why would Lincoln begin with reference to the Declaration of Independence four score and seven years ago?
• Lincoln spoke for about two minutes and his speech was just 272 words long. Why do you suppose he offered such a short speech for such a major commemoration?
• How do you imagine each of us continuing the “unfinished” work of a country founded on liberty and equality in the interest of a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”?

The Gettysburg Address – Abraham Lincoln

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon 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 battlefield 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 this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate … we cannot consecrate … we cannot 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 this earth.

Source: Lincoln, A. (1863, November 19). The Gettysburg Address. Project Gutenberg. https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4/pg4-images.html

• Bonus content: Audio recording