| The crowd hardly noticed this
brief speech at the
time in the context of the prior 2 hour keynote speech by the popular orator
Edward Everett. It was so brief that it was over before they even paid
attention to President Lincoln, who had not even been invited to speak at
first as that day was planned. |
| Lincoln obviously gave very careful thought to
his speech, however. It has gone down in history as a very moving
statement, at a critical time in the Civil War, of the enduring principles
on which this country was founded. It looked beyond the bitter hatred
of the war to the task of rebuilding a united country. |
| He was dedicating people again to
unite in defense of the
fundamental principles of freedom as a republic on which the country had
been founded. |
| In hindsight, it was not the fact of the great
battle and war memorial ceremony which was remembered, but rather the basic values which Lincoln articulated
so clearly. |
|
The
Gettysburg Address - November 19, 1863 |
| 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. |
| 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 that 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 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. |
|
Excerpt from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address - 1865 |
| "With malice toward none; with
charity toward all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the
nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for
his widow, and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just,
and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." |
| This was another great and succinct speech.
The conclusion above remains the most memorable part of it as a message
of compassion at the conclusion of a bitter and horrific Civil War. |
| Unfortunately, events following the death of
Lincoln did not play out as charitably in the post-war treatment of the
southern states. Many issues raised by the war remained "unfinished
work" for decades. |
| This followed the Emancipation Proclamation
which finally doomed the practice of slavery at the start of that year.
Although discrimination would persist for decades, this finally recognized
the need to correct that obvious Constitutional flaw of hypocrisy in freedom for some, but
not all people. At the time, however, it was also a matter of military
expediency - because slave labor was helping to supply and support the rebel
Confederate forces in their early successes against the Union armies. |
