Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

The Gettysburg Address.  If you went to middle school in the United States, there's a really good chance that you had to recite President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in either your civics or social studies class.  It isn't that long, but I remember working hard to memorize it the night before I had to recite it to my teacher (thankfully, he didn't make us recite it in front of the class).  If you want to hear a really great version of someone reciting the Gettysburg Address, check out the actor Jeff Daniel's version here.

The Battle of Gettysburg was a major turning point in the American Civil War.  It was also the deadliest battle in that war.  Most historians estimate that both sides combined suffered between 46,000 to 51,000 casualties during the three days of the battle, July 1-3, 1863 (nearly one-third of all of the soldiers fighting those three days).  The death and destruction that accompanied the battle were still evident on November 19, 1863, when President Lincoln delivered his famous address to commemorate the battle and dedicate the new Soldier's National Cemetery there.  

Lincoln wasn't even the principal speaker that day.  Edward Everett, the politician, educator, and diplomat from Massachusetts was widely known to be one of the finest orators in America at the time, and it was his speech that was to be the actual "Gettysburg Address" on that day.  Everett's address was over 13,000 words and began with:

Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and Nature. But the duty to which you have called me must be performed;—grant me, I pray you, your indulgence and your sympathy.

The speech ended almost two hours later with the following:

But they, I am sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr-heroes, that wheresoever throughout the civilized world the accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common country, there will be no brighter page than that which relates the Battles of Gettysburg.

President Lincoln then stepped up to deliver his address.  He was a little weak, as he had developed a mild case of smallpox the week before his speech.  He spoke for just a few minutes, summarizing the entire war in just ten sentences.  Lincoln's Gettysburg Address has gone down in history as perhaps one of the greatest speeches ever made.  

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.

When he finished, he returned to his seat.  Everett reportedly told him, "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."

Today, we celebrate Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.  I hope that the teachers still make their students memorize it.  But more importantly, we would do well to live by it.