Seven
score and nine years ago, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln brought
forth in this nation a very small, very impactful speech.
The
occasion was the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The style of the day was for orators
(speakers) to go on and on with long, soaring speeches. And indeed,
one of the most famous orators of the time, Edward Everett, had been
invited to speak, and he wowed the crowd with two hours of grand
speechifying. Then President Lincoln, who was coming down with a mild
case of smallpox and felt a bit ill, stood up and gave what he was
asked to give: “a few appropriate remarks.”
Just
272 words.
A mere 10 sentences.
He
started and was finished in just a couple of minutes. The photographer missed taking a picture of him while speaking, he finished so unexpectedly quickly!
Lincoln received very little, if any, applause. (Reports differ.)
And
yet this speech, these 272 words, are considered one of the greatest
speeches in American history!
Lincoln
looked at the founding principles of the U.S. within the prism of the
Civil War, and he restated the principles of human equality,
expressed in the Declaration of Independence, within the context of
the ending of slavery. He talked about the preservation of the nation and finished
with iconic words describing the American government: “...this government
of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
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.
 |
| The Gettysburg Address is carved on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial. |
Check
these out...
I
like this animated video and
stirring reading of
the Gettysburg Address A LOT.
Here
is another video
about the Gettysburg Address.
Also
on this date:
