Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (Article 131)
“These dead shall not have died in vain”
A ceremony had been arranged for Thursday, November 19, 1863, as a dedication of a new National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, commemorating those who died there in battle the prior July. President Lincoln was an afterthought, as the primary speaker was Edward Everett, an internationally known and respected orator. Lincoln invited his Cabinet members to attend but only Secretary of State William Seward, Secretary of Interior John Usher, and Postmaster General Montgomery Blair agreed to go. Secretary of War William Stanton chose to not attend, but did order a special train to depart a day prior to the event so Lincoln could have a less hectic trip and could return when he chose.
The organizers expected him to give a relatively brief commemoration, possibly twenty-thirty minutes, following Everett's anticipated two-hour oration. As it was, Lincoln really needed some quiet time to revise the early draft to assure it was meaningful, but was still brief enough to be delivered within the time-frame he was allotted.
And, as we all know today, twenty minutes is usually not enough time for any politician (then or now) to complete a public speech and then give up the podium to someone else!
Lincoln, Ward Lamon, his guard, and John Nicolay, who was one of his secretaries, along with Seward, Usher, and Blair, boarded the train in the afternoon of the 18th and arrived in Gettysburg about 5 PM. Lincoln had his draft with him before departing but, contrary to many reports, he did not revise the text on the back of an envelope while traveling because Nicolay said, “Mr. Lincoln rested, relaxed, engaged with his fellow riders and told a few stories to the delight of the other passengers.” At Gettysburg, he went to the home of David Wells, where he, the Governor of Pennsylvania, and Edward Everett would spend the night. After supper with the other guests, Lincoln went to his room to work on the speech.
About 11 PM, Lincoln walked over to see Seward, who was a close friend and trusted advisor, and it is presumed Lincoln shared his final text.
The next morning, he rode a horse to the ceremony area, rather than a carriage, and sat on the raised platform in front of an estimated 9,000 people, many of whom were probably more interested in listening to Everett than to Lincoln, after all, as one author proclaimed, he was the “popular rock star” of his day. Everett spoke first, and for nearly two hours gave what was then regarded as a great speech.
Just what the crowd came for. Then it was Lincoln's time to speak.
A reporter noted: “The President rose slowly and when the welcoming commotion had subsided, spoke in a high pitched, clear carrying voice.” He finished in under three minutes, even too soon for the photographer who was preparing for a picture. The crowd, stunned by the brevity, was silent for a few moments, and then gave Lincoln a polite, but not enthusiastic, ovation.
When he went to sit down, Lincoln told Ward Lamon that the speech “Did not scour and the people are disappointed.” In using the farming term “did not scour” the President was saying that he had not conveyed what he hoped. However, Edward Everett, one of the great orators of his time, was visibly moved and told reporters that Lincoln’s speech was better in every way than his. That evening, Mr. Everett wrote to Lincoln and stated that Lincoln said more in two minutes than he had in two hours and asked for a copy. Lincoln then wrote several hand versions over the next few days, sending one to Everett, three for fund-raisers for soldiers, and one to his host at Gettysburg. John Nicolay, his secretary, protected the original draft and the copy from which he read, and later gave them to the Library of Congress.
Nicolay noted later that, when Lincoln spoke, he had changed the wording from his handwritten final text in two ways. He had written “they have consecrated it far above our “poor” power to add or detract,” but he left out the word “poor” when he spoke. Also, he did not include the words “under God” in the text but spoke those words in the speech and included them in a subsequent copy.
Please, take an extra moment to carefully read and contemplate Lincoln’s words.
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 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 that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper 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 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 here 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.”
Now, that was a Presidential speech! And, contrary to what Lincoln thought, the world has long remembered.