The Gettysburg Address

On this day in 1863, President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, a speech many people refer to as the most memorable in American History. Since reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's great book An Unfinished Love Story, I have been curious about who different politician's speechwriters were. Goodwin's husband Dick wrote speeches for JFK, LBJ and RFK. A notable speech recently given by Vice-President Kamala Harris as her concession speech was written by a young man whose parents were Holocaust survivors. It was excellent, courageous and amicable.

However, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was written by Lincoln, jotted down after he was asked to give it only two weeks in advance. In fewer than 275 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War.

As the History Channel said,

"Reception of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was initially mixed, divided strictly along partisan lines. Nevertheless, the “little speech,” as he later called it, is thought by many today to be the most eloquent articulation of the democratic vision ever written."

Here it is. See what you think.

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.