Garling Gauge

Gettysburg Address Anniversary

Seven score and four years ago…

Today marks 144 years since President Abraham Lincoln gave his most famous and quoted speech: The Gettysburg Address. Orated in 1863 during the American Civil War at a dedication for the Soldiers’ National Cemetary in Gettsburg, Pennsylvania, it is regarded as one of the great speeches in American history.

Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Now, during another time of war and death, and on the anniversary of his well-crafted address seven score and four years ago, the Garling Gauge pays tribute to his immortal words.

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.

-Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Union dead at Gettysburg, photographed by Timothy O’Sullivan, July 5–July 6, 1863

The only known photograph of President Lincoln at the dedication of the Civil War cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863. Detail below.

Detail: Lincoln in the center

TheFreeEncyclopedia notes the parallels between Lincoln’s address and other sources.

Civil War scholar James McPherson’s review of Wills’ book addresses the parallels to Pericles’ Funeral Oration during the Peloponnesian War as described by Thucydides, and enumerates several striking comparisons with Lincoln’s speech. Pericles’ speech, like Lincoln’s, begins with an acknowledgment of revered predecessors: “I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like the present”; then praises the uniqueness of the State’s commitment to democracy: “If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences”; honors the sacrifice of the slain, “Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonour, but met danger face to face”; and exhorts the living to continue the struggle: “You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue.”

Abraham Lincoln. Younger picture taken in 1846.

Craig R. Smith, in “Criticism of Political Rhetoric and Disciplinary Integrity”, also suggested the influence of Daniel Webster’s famous speeches on the view of government expressed by Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address, specifically, Webster’s “Second Reply to Hayne”, in which he states, “This government, Sir, is the independent offspring of the popular will. It is not the creature of State legislatures; nay, more, if the whole truth must be told, the people brought it into existence, established it, and have hitherto supported it, for the very purpose, amongst others, of imposing certain salutary restraints on State sovereignties.”

Elsewhere in his reply to Haynes, Webster described the federal government as: “made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people,” foreshadowing Lincoln’s “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Some have noted Lincoln’s usage of the imagery of birth, life, and death in reference to a nation “brought forth,” “conceived,” and that shall not “perish.” Others, including Allen C. Guelzo, the director of Civil War Era studies at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, suggested that Lincoln’s formulation “four score and seven” was an allusion to the King James Version of the Bible’s , in which man’s lifespan is given as “threescore years and ten”.

“Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came …. Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.” –Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865 - Second Inaugural Address

History not your thing? Don’t worry, there’s always the PowerPoint.

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Category: Politics

http://www.rokkorfiles.com/photos/EO-Lincoln-Statue.jpg, http://home.att.net/~howingtons/abe.html
http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=2140&rendTypeId=4, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/gadd/gaphot.html
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/122/019_1477~Abraham-Lincoln-Posters.jpg
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