150
Years After The Gettysburg Address, Is Government By The People In Trouble?
(By Drew Gilpin
Faust, Washington Post, 24 November 2013)
One of the most remarkable aspects of the
Civil War is that it was fought at all. Even when sectional discord culminated
in Southern secession in the winter of 1860-61, many Americans remained
confident that military conflict could be avoided. Sen. James Chesnut of South
Carolina dismissed talk of war by pledging to drink whatever blood might be
shed. And in his March 1861 inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln insisted that
“there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it
be forced upon the national authority.” Even
those who did expect armed conflict thought hostilities would be brief and
losses minor. At the war’s outset, it
seemed almost unimaginable that the North would be willing to fight so long and
hard to keep the Southern states in the Union. Confederate military strategy in
fact came to rest on an assumption that the North would not sustain its
commitment to war in the face of escalating sacrifice. Gen. Robert E. Lee’s
search for the decisive battle, his invasions of the North, the Confederacy’s
eager anticipation of Lincoln’s electoral defeat in 1864 — all represented a
costly and fatal underestimation of the commitment of some 2.2 million Northern
soldiers, overwhelmingly volunteers, to the preservation of the Union.
With the inevitability of hindsight, with the
nation preserved and projected toward the global leadership we have come to
take for granted, we rarely consider that the North might in the mid-19th
century have made a different decision, might have let the South secede or
perhaps have negotiated a peace in the face of Confederate military successes
during the war’s early years. And those millions of Yankee soldiers might have
proved unwilling to fight. Today our
military includes only 1 percent of our population. Could we mobilize the
equivalent of the Union army? In 1860, the Northern states had 22 million
inhabitants; 10 percent of them served; more than 360,000 of them died,
offering what Lincoln called “the last full measure of devotion.” Would 31
million of our 314 million inhabitants be willing to risk their lives for
the nation today? What cause, what circumstances, would motivate them?
Except during Lee’s two brief incursions into
the North, Union soldiers of the 1860s were not fending off an invasion or
protecting their homes and firesides. Many came from towns and farms at great
distances from the Confederacy, from Wisconsin or Michigan or Vermont or Maine.
But they came to understand themselves as fighting for something at once more
abstract, more selfless, more transcendent and more powerful than their
self-interest. We should, to borrow Lincoln’s words uttered 150 years ago this
Tuesday, “never forget what they did” and why they did it. Never forget the
still-unfinished work they so nobly advanced. Never forget why they chose — and
yes, it was for almost all a choice — to fight.
And we must not forget why that leaves a legacy of responsibility for
all of us.
I often wonder if the North would have
fought, if the ranks would have filled, if there had been a different president
— one less able to articulate the war’s meaning and purposes with an eloquence
that grew alongside the war’s costs and sacrifices. The song “We Are Coming Father Abra’am, 300,000 More,”
popularized after Lincoln’s appeal for additional volunteers in 1862, captures
the way in which his call upon the people came to represent the national
imperative in the public mind. Could his predecessor in the White House, James
Buchanan, have mobilized 2.2 million men?
Lincoln’s rhetoric and, more important, the
ideals that rhetoric embodied evolved from the first inaugural address, with
its invocation of ties that bound the young nation together in memory and hope,
to the Gettysburg Address, with its definition of the war’s true meaning and
the nation’s fundamental identity and mission. His language offered to lift
Americans above what they might otherwise understand themselves to be, to
invest them in the work of saving a nation that was, as he put it in his annual
message to Congress in 1862, “the last, best hope of Earth.” In the course of the war, Lincoln succeeded in
defining the American project — what it was, why it mattered and what it
required of citizens. As efforts to establish and sustain democracy failed
around the world, as Europe turned back toward despotism after the failed
revolutions of 1848, government conceived in liberty seemed increasingly
imperiled. America’s war was not just about America.
Secession, Lincoln proclaimed in a message to
Congress in July 1861, threatened “more than the fate of these United States.”
It involved “the whole family of man” in its challenge to “a government of the
people, by the same people.” What was at risk was “free government upon the
Earth.” The war, he went on, was
“essentially a people’s contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for
maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading
object is to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all
shoulders — to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an
unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life. . . . I am most happy
to believe that the plain people understand and appreciate this.”
And Lincoln made sure they did. Here in the
first summer of the war were the germs of the ideas and ideals that 28 months
and tens of thousands of Union deaths later became the Gettysburg Address. But
by the fall of 1863, those deaths had brought something new to Lincoln’s
understanding and his language. The terrible reality of war’s suffering had
come to require that the nation for which so much had been sacrificed be more
than just a promise or a hope, even a “last, best hope.” At Gettysburg, Lincoln
demanded that the uncountable number of lost lives be rendered purposeful,
worth their expense of blood and pain. Now, in 1863, he chose active words such
as “dedicate” and “resolve,” words far more compelling than “hope.” There must be a benefit, he insisted, for the
price already paid, a benefit commensurate with the war’s terrible cost, a cost
that at the outset no one had expected.
With the sense of obligation in his
juxtaposition of three uses of “shall” — “shall not have died in vain,” “shall
have a new birth of freedom,” “shall not perish” — Lincoln conveyed the
significance of the expanded purposes of the war. It was no longer just about
the union, about national survival; it was now about a particular sort of
union, a better, freer nation than those in 1861 could have imagined. The struggle
had not begun as a war to end slavery; only gradually did emancipation emerge
as a purpose of Union victory. Lincoln
urged his audience at Gettysburg to persevere in the “unfinished work” before
them. Another fearful year and a half of war lay ahead, with yet again as many
deaths to come. But Appomattox would not end the work he envisioned. It was the
obligations of freedom and nationhood as well as those of war that he urged
upon his audience. Seizing the full meaning of liberty and equality still lay
ahead.
These are responsibilities that belong to us
still. Yet on the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s immortal speech, where is our
stewardship of that legacy? After beginning a new fiscal year by shutting down the government,
we are far from modeling to the world why our — or any — democracy should be
viewed as the “best hope” for humankind. The world sees in the United States
the rapid growth of inequality; the erosion of educational opportunity and
social mobility that “afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the
race of life”; the weakening of voting rights hard-won over a century of
post-Reconstruction struggle. Is this
the nation, the “proposition” to which Lincoln demanded we be dedicated? We can
never forget what brave Americans did at Gettysburg, and at Shiloh and Antietam
and the Wilderness and on so many battlefields since. But is it not now
altogether fitting and proper that we heed Lincoln’s exhortation and rededicate
ourselves to honoring those dead by ensuring that government of the people, by
the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth?
Drew Gilpin Faust, the president of Harvard
University, is a historian and author of “This Republic of Suffering: Death and
the American Civil War.”
Retraction For Our 1863 Editorial Calling Gettysburg Address 'Silly Remarks'
(By Patriot-News Editorial Board The Patriot-News& Matt Zencey, November 17, 2013)
The Patriot & Union devoted all of one paragraph to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them, and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of." Seven score and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives.
We write today in reconsideration of “The Gettysburg Address,” delivered by then-President Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the greatest conflict seen on American soil. Our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink, as was common in the profession at the time, called President Lincoln’s words “silly remarks,” deserving “a veil of oblivion,” apparently believing it an indifferent and altogether ordinary message, unremarkable in eloquence and uninspiring in its brevity.
In the fullness of time, we have come to a different conclusion. No mere utterance, then or now, could do justice to the soaring heights of language Mr. Lincoln reached that day. By today’s words alone, we cannot exalt, we cannot hallow, we cannot venerate this sacred text, for a grateful nation long ago came to view those words with reverence, without guidance from this chagrined member of the mainstream media. The world will little note nor long remember our emendation of this institution’s record – but we must do as conscience demands:
In the editorial about President Abraham Lincoln’s speech delivered Nov. 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, the Patriot & Union failed to recognize its momentous importance, timeless eloquence, and lasting significance. The Patriot-News regrets the error.
A Voice From The Dead
(Patriot & Union Editorial, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 1863)
We have read the oration of Mr. Everett. We have read the little speeches of President Lincoln, as reported for and published in his party press, and we have read the remarks of the Hon. Secretary of State, Wm. H. Seward, all delivered on the occasion of dedicating the National Cemetery, a plot of ground set apart for the burial of the dead who fell at Gettysburg in the memorable strife which occurred there between the forces of the Federal Government and the troops of the Confederacy of seceded States. To say of Mr. Everett's oration that it rose to the height which the occasion demanded, or to say of the President's remarks that they fell below our expectations, would be alike false. Neither the orator nor the jester surprised or deceived us. Whatever may be Mr. Everett's failings he does not lack sense - whatever may be the President's virtues, he does not possess sense. Mr. Everett failed as an orator, because the occasion was a mockery, and he knew it, and the President succeeded, because he acted naturally, without sense and without constraint, in a panorama which was gotten up more for his benefit and the benefit of his party than for the glory of the nation and the honor of the dead.
We can readily conceive that the thousands who went there went as mourners, to view the burial place of their dead, to consecrate, so far as human agency could, the ground in which the slain heroes of the nation, standing in relationship to them of fathers, husbands, brothers, or connected by even remoter ties of marriage or consanguinity, were to be interred. To them the occasion was solemn; with them the motive was honest, earnest and honorable. But how was it with the chief actors in the pageant, who had no dead buried, or to be buried there; from none of whose loins had sprung a solitary hero, living or dead, of this war which was begotten of their fanaticism and has been ruled by their whims?
They stood there, upon that ground, not with hearts stricken with grief or elated by ideas of true glory, but coldly calculating the political advantages which might be derived from the solemn ceremonies of the dedication.
We will not include in this category of heartless men the orator of the day; but evidently he was paralyzed by the knowledge that he was surrounded by unfeeling, mercenary men, ready to sacrifice their country and the liberties of their countrymen for the base purpose of retaining power and accumulating wealth. Hi oration was therefore cold, insipid, unworthy the occasion and the man.
We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of.
But the Secretary of State is a man of note. He it was who first fulminated the doctrine of the irrepressible conflict; and on the battle field and burial ground of Gettysburg he did not hesitate to re-open the bleeding wound, and proclaim anew the fearful doctrine that we are fighting all these bloody battles, which have drenched our land in gore, to upset the Constitution, emancipate the negro and bind the white man in the chains of despotism.
On that ground which should have been sacred from the pollution of politics, even the highest magnate in the land, next to the President himself, did not hesitate to proclaim the political policy and fixed purpose of the administration; a policy which if adhered to will require more ground than Gettysburg to hold our dead, and which must end in the ruin of the nation. The dead of Gettysburg will speak from their tombs; they will raise their voices against this great wickedness and implore our rulers to discard from their councils the folly which is destroying us, and return to the wise doctrines of the Fathers, to the pleadings of Christianity, to the compromises of the Constitution, which can alone save us. Let our rulers hearken to the dead, if they will not to the living - for from every tomb which covers a dead soldier, if they listen attentively they will hear a solemn sound invoking them to renounce partisanship for patriotism, and to save the country from the misery and desolation which, under their present policy, is inevitable.
The Gettysburg Address
(By Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863)
On June 1, 1865, Senator Charles Sumner referred to the most famous speech ever given by President Abraham Lincoln. In his eulogy on the slain president, he called the Gettysburg Address a "monumental act." He said Lincoln was mistaken that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Rather, the Bostonian remarked, "The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech."
There are five known copies of the speech in Lincoln's handwriting, each with a slightly different text, and named for the people who first received them: Nicolay, Hay, Everett, Bancroft and Bliss. Two copies apparently were written before delivering the speech; the remaining ones were produced months later for soldier benefit events. Despite widely-circulated stories to the contrary, the president did not dash off a copy aboard a train to Gettysburg. Lincoln carefully prepared his major speeches in advance; his steady, even script in every manuscript is consistent with a firm writing surface, not the notoriously bumpy Civil War-era trains. Additional versions of the speech appeared in newspapers of the era, feeding modern-day confusion about the authoritative text.
Bliss Copy
Ever since Lincoln wrote it in 1864, this version has been the most often reproduced, notably on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. It is named after Colonel Alexander Bliss, stepson of historian George Bancroft. Bancroft asked President Lincoln for a copy to use as a fundraiser for soldiers (see "Bancroft Copy" below). However, because Lincoln wrote on both sides of the paper, the speech could not be reprinted, so Lincoln made another copy at Bliss's request. It is the last known copy written by Lincoln and the only one signed and dated by him. Today it is on display at the Lincoln Room of the White House.
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
November 19, 1863
Nicolay Copy
Named for John G. Nicolay, President Lincoln's personal secretary, this is considered the "first draft" of the speech, begun in Washington on White house stationery. The second page is writen on different paper stock, indicating it was finished in Gettysburg before the cemetery dedication began. Lincoln gave this draft to Nicolay, who went to Gettysburg with Lincoln and witnessed the speech. The Library of Congress owns this manuscript.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon 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 come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do.
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 hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.
It is rather for us, the living, we here be 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 these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, 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.
Hay Copy
Believed to be the second draft of the speech, President Lincoln gave this copy to John Hay, a White House assistant. Hay accompanied Lincoln to Gettysburg and briefly referred to the speech in his diary: "the President, in a fine, free way, with more grace than is his wont, said his half dozen words of consecration." The Hay copy, which includes Lincoln's handwritten changes, also is owned by the Library of Congress.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon 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 here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, 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 can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. 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 shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Everett Copy
Edward Everett, the chief speaker at the Gettysburg cemetery dedication, clearly was impressed by Lincoln's remarks and wrote to him the next day saying, "I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes." In 1864 Everett asked Lincoln for a copy of the speech to benefit Union soldiers, making it the third manuscript copy. Eventually the state of Illinois acquired it, where it's preserved at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon 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 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.
Bancroft Copy
As noted above, historian George Bancroft asked President Lincoln for a copy to use as a fundraiser for soldiers. When Lincoln sent his copy on February 29, 1864, he used both sides of the paper, rendering the manuscript useless for lithographic engraving. So Bancroft kept this copy and Lincoln had to produce an additional one (Bliss Copy). The Bancroft copy is now owned by Cornell University.
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 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.
Source for all versions: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler and others.
