The Gettysburg Address

Summary

On 19 November 1863, four and a half months after the Union victory at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a large crowd gathered to dedicate the Soldiers' National Cemetery, where Union soldiers killed in the fighting of 1-3 July were being reinterred. The principal orator was Edward Everett, the former secretary of state and president of Harvard, who spoke for about two hours. David Wills, the local attorney who organized the cemetery, had asked President Lincoln to offer a few appropriate remarks as the formal act of dedication. Lincoln spoke for roughly two minutes, about 270 words. The address moves through time in three steps. It begins in the past, eighty-seven years earlier, when the fathers founded a nation on the proposition that all men are created equal; Lincoln dates the nation from the Declaration of Independence of 1776. It turns to the present: a civil war is testing whether any nation so founded can long endure, and the crowd has come to set aside part of the field for those who died that the nation might live. Then Lincoln reverses his own premise. The living cannot truly dedicate, consecrate, or hallow the ground, because the men who struggled there have already done it; the world will forget the words spoken that day but never the deeds. What remains for the living is to be dedicated to the unfinished work. The last sentence, long and cumulative, binds the hearers to a resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that the nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of, by, and for the people shall not perish. The speech names no battle, general, state, or enemy, and it speaks of the war's purpose in terms broad enough to cover the whole nation. Its cadences echo the King James Bible. Newspaper reactions divided largely along party lines, but Everett wrote to Lincoln the next day that he wished he had come as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours as Lincoln had in two minutes. Five manuscript copies in Lincoln's hand survive, differing slightly in wording; the address is carved on the south wall of the Lincoln Memorial.

Plot or Argument

• The founding: a nation conceived in liberty (Sentence 1)

  Lincoln reaches back eighty-seven years to 1776 and describes the nation's birth in biblical language: the fathers brought it forth, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition of human equality. The word proposition frames the founding as a claim still awaiting proof.

• The present test on the battlefield (Sentences 2-5)

  The war is a test of whether such a nation can last. The crowd stands on part of the field that tested it, met to dedicate a resting place for those who gave their lives that the nation might live, and Lincoln affirms that this act is fitting and proper.

• The reversal: the dead have already consecrated the ground (Sentences 6-8)

  Lincoln turns on the very ceremony he is performing. The living cannot dedicate, consecrate, or hallow the field; the brave men, living and dead, have done that beyond anyone's power to add or detract. The world will forget the speeches and remember the deeds.

• The charge to the living (Sentences 9-10)

  The dedication shifts from ground to hearers. The living must take up the unfinished work and draw increased devotion from the dead, resolving that they did not die in vain, that the nation under God will have a new birth of freedom, and that popular government will not perish from the earth.

Lessons

• Honoring the dead by finishing their work

  Lincoln refuses to let a cemetery dedication remain a ceremony. He argues that the soldiers' sacrifice cannot be improved by words, so the only fitting tribute is for the living to take up the task the dead advanced. Remembrance, in this speech, is a form of obligation.

  • Why does Lincoln say the living cannot dedicate the ground, when that is exactly what the ceremony was for?
  • What is the unfinished work Lincoln asks his hearers to carry on, and why does he leave it partly unnamed?
  • How might a family or a school honor someone's sacrifice in the way Lincoln describes?

• The founding as a proposition to be proved

  By dating the nation from 1776 and calling equality a proposition, Lincoln treats the Declaration of Independence as the nation's defining creed and the war as its proof. The speech teaches that a people founded on an idea must keep showing that the idea can endure.

  • Why might Lincoln count the nation's age from the Declaration rather than from the Constitution of 1787?
  • What does it mean to call a moral truth a proposition that is being tested?
  • Is a nation built on an idea stronger or more fragile than one built on shared ancestry or territory?

• The power of brevity

  Everett's learned two-hour oration was admired and then largely forgotten; Lincoln's ten sentences became the best-known speech in American history. Lincoln compresses past, present, and future into a single movement and lets plain words such as here, dedicate, and devotion carry the weight through repetition.

  • Lincoln predicts that the world will little note what was said that day. Why did that prediction prove wrong?
  • Which words does Lincoln repeat most, and what do the repetitions accomplish?
  • Can a short speech say more than a long one? What does brevity demand of a speaker?

Context

The Battle of Gettysburg (1-3 July 1863) ended Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North at the cost of tens of thousands of casualties on both sides. The town was left with thousands of hastily buried dead, and Pennsylvania's governor, Andrew Curtin, backed a plan by the Gettysburg attorney David Wills for a national cemetery for the Union fallen. The dedication came in a year that had also seen the Emancipation Proclamation take effect on 1 January and the fall of Vicksburg on 4 July.

Composition

Lincoln received Wills's invitation in early November, worked on the text in Washington, and revised it at Gettysburg, where he stayed at Wills's house the night before. Five manuscript copies in his hand survive, known by the names of their recipients or first owners (Nicolay, Hay, Everett, Bancroft, and Bliss); they differ slightly, for example in whether the phrase under God appears. Reporters' transcriptions of the delivered speech differ again. The library's text is the version reproduced by the Avalon Project.

Reception

Republican papers praised the address and Democratic papers often belittled it, but its reputation grew steadily after Lincoln's death. Everett's note to Lincoln the following day conceded the point gracefully. The address became a standard school recitation, was carved into the Lincoln Memorial (dedicated 1922), and is now among the most quoted texts in American public life.

Comparisons

• pericles-funeral-oration

  Both are state funeral speeches for war dead that turn from praising the fallen to defining the city or nation they died for and charging the living to be worthy of them.

• lincoln-second-inaugural-address

  Sixteen months later Lincoln again compressed the war's meaning into a short text, but where Gettysburg resolves to finish the work, the Second Inaugural ponders God's judgment and asks for malice toward none.

• the-founding-documents

  Lincoln's opening sentence dates the nation from the Declaration of Independence and restates its central self-evident truth as the proposition on trial at Gettysburg.

• o-captain-my-captain

  Whitman's elegy of 1865 mourns the speaker of the Gettysburg Address, completing the passage from his honoring of the war dead to the nation's mourning for him.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The three time frames: the founding in Sentence 1, the war and the ceremony in Sentences 2-5, and the future task in Sentences 9-10.
• The word here, repeated through the second half, tying every claim to the ground where the crowd stood.
• The turn at But in a larger sense, where Lincoln denies the power of the very ceremony he is leading.
• The double use of devotion in the last sentence: the devotion the dead gave and the devotion the living must take from them.
• The final triad of the people, by the people, for the people, which defines the cause without naming parties, states, or generals.

Key terms and names

Fourscore and seven

Eighty-seven years, counted in the biblical manner (a score is twenty); it reaches back from 1863 to the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Proposition

A claim put forward to be proved; Lincoln calls human equality the proposition to which the nation was dedicated, so the war becomes its test.

Consecrate and hallow

To set apart as sacred; Lincoln says the soldiers' sacrifice has already done this to the field, beyond the power of any ceremony.

Soldiers' National Cemetery

The burial ground on Cemetery Hill dedicated on 19 November 1863 for Union soldiers killed in the battle.

Edward Everett

Massachusetts statesman and classical scholar who gave the two-hour main oration before Lincoln spoke.

New birth of freedom

Lincoln's phrase for the renewal of the nation that the war's sacrifice must bring about, in language that recalls being born again.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What event happened fourscore and seven years before 1863, and why does Lincoln start there?
2. Comprehension What did the crowd come to Gettysburg to do, according to Sentence 4, and why does Lincoln then say they cannot do it?
3. Interpretation Lincoln calls the nation conceived and brought forth. Why describe a country with the language of birth, and how does that prepare for the new birth at the end?
4. Interpretation Why does the address never mention the Confederacy, slavery by name, or any general or regiment? What does it gain by this restraint?
5. Interpretation How does the meaning of dedicate change between the beginning and the end of the speech?
6. Big Question Can the dead lay obligations on the living? What do we owe to those who died for something we inherit?
7. Big Question What would it mean for a nation to have a new birth of freedom, and can a people be renewed the way a person can?

Faith Connections

• Psalm 90:10 (Scripture)

  The psalm's threescore years and ten is the model for Lincoln's fourscore and seven; the same psalm sets human generations against God's eternity, as the address sets the speakers' brief words against lasting deeds.

• John 3:3-7 (Scripture)

  Jesus tells Nicodemus that a man must be born again; Lincoln's new birth of freedom borrows the language of regeneration for a nation's renewal after suffering.

• John 15:13 (Scripture)

  Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends; the soldiers' last full measure of devotion is honored in these terms, as a gift that consecrates.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The nation was founded on the proposition that all men are created equal; the war tests whether such a nation can endure; the dead at Gettysburg gave their lives that it might; words cannot add to their sacrifice; therefore the living honor them only by dedicating themselves to finish the work, so that the nation is renewed in freedom and popular government survives.

Rhetorical device: Anaphora with tricolon. Sentence 6 repeats we cannot three times with rising verbs (dedicate, consecrate, hallow), and the final sentence closes on the triple of the people, by the people, for the people.

Debate: Resolved: The Gettysburg Address is right that what the soldiers did matters more than anything said about it.

Memory Work

Fourscore 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.

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.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Trace how Lincoln moves from past to present to future in ten sentences, and explain how the reversal in Sentence 6 changes what the word dedicate means by the end.

Comparison with Pericles' Funeral Oration: Pericles and Lincoln both spoke over the war dead of a self-governing people. Compare how each defines the city or nation the soldiers died for and what each asks of the living.

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Have students mark every occurrence of here, dedicate, and nation in the ten sentences, then read the address aloud stressing those words and discuss how the repetitions build the argument.

• Essay

  Set Lincoln's address beside a passage of Everett's oration from the same afternoon and explain why the shorter speech outlasted the longer one.

• Fiction

  Write the evening of 19 November 1863 from the point of view of a Gettysburg townsperson who helped bury the dead in July and stood in the crowd that afternoon.

Further Reading

• Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, Garry Wills

  Pulitzer Prize-winning study of the address's sources, including the Greek funeral oration, and its effect on American self-understanding.

• The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows, Gabor Boritt

  Detailed account of the day, the manuscripts, and the speech's slow rise to fame.

• Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words, Douglas L. Wilson

• Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, Allen C. Guelzo

  Narrative history of the battle whose dead the address commemorates.