On Nov 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech on the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pa., which would become the most monumental speech he ever gave, the completion of the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence, and at 272 words spoken in about two minutes, one of the most succinct expressions of democracy ever heard on earth.
The cemetery at Gettysburg, July 2, 2013 (Jonathan Park via Flickr)
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.
In contrast to Mr Lincoln’s humility, the world has long remembered what was said that day. Please share with us how your classrooms are celebrating this text or if you have any activities planned around the sesquicentennial of its creation.
For further reading:
- Boritt, Gabor. The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows. 2006.
- Graham, Kent. November: Lincoln’s Elegy at Gettysburg. 2001.
- Hoch, Bradley R. and Boritt, Gabor S. The Lincoln Trail in Pennsylvania. 2001.
- Johnson, Martin P. Writing the Gettysburg Address. 2013.
- Kunhardt, Philip B., Jr. A New Birth of Freedom—Lincoln at Gettysburg. 1983.
- Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America. 1993.
