Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg Address, famous speech delivered by United States president Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He presented it at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, honoring those who died in the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg earlier that year.

This brief discourse followed a two-hour oration by Edward Everett, the main speaker at the event and one of the most famous speakers of the time. In the contemporary newspaper reports of the dedication ceremonies, Everett's remarks were lauded highly and given prominence on the front page, while the words of Lincoln were relegated to an inside page. Everett, however, was sufficiently moved by the simple and sincere eloquence of Lincoln to write the following note to him on the day after the dedication: “I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.” Today, the Gettysburg Address is universally recognized not only as a classical model of the noblest kind of oratory but also as one of the most moving expressions of the democratic spirit ever uttered.

The writing of the Gettysburg Address has become an American myth. The most popular version states that Lincoln wrote the address on the back of a used envelope. In fact, President Lincoln wrote two drafts of the brief speech and made some changes to the text as he spoke. He subsequently wrote copies of the address that he presented. The text follows.

“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 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 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.”