Gettysburg Address Delivered by President Lincoln (1863)
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at a military ceremony in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Likely the most famous battle of the Civil War took place at Gettysburg, PA, from July 1 to July 3, 1863. After the intense battle, the Union's Army of the Potomac successfully defeated the second invasion led by the Confederacy's Army of Northern Virginia. A few months later, President Lincoln went to Gettysburg for a military ceremony to commemorate the Union war dead.
The main speaker on November 19, 1863, was Edward Everett, one of the nation’s most renowned orators at the time. Lincoln was invited to speak second as the nation’s Chief Executive.
Everett spoke for a full two hours to the crowd. Then, Lincoln took the podium and gave a speech that lasted only two minutes – but is regarded by many as one of the most famous speeches of the Civil War.
On November 19, 1863, Lincoln addressed the crowd, war dead, and hurting nation with these famous words:
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.
Everett later wrote to Lincoln: "Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you, with such eloquent simplicity & appropriateness, at the consecration of the Cemetery. 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." (Source:
http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/gettysburgaddress/Pages/default.aspx)
Lincoln gave his speech a lot of thought and saw that the Union’s victory at Gettysburg coincided with the nation’s birthday. He stressed the importance of liberty and equality and of "a new birth of freedom" for the nation. Lincoln later expressed disappointment in his speech, but it has come to be regarded as one of the most eloquent speeches in U.S. history.