[aMorePerfectUnion]

I just realized the 151st anniversary passed by and I didn't hear much about it.

I am always amazed at how very short this speech was and how very influential world-wide.

So very like today, the speech garnered partisan reaction, yet has echoed down through the years. What follows is from the Wikipedia article:

"Other public reaction to the speech was divided along partisan lines.[5] The Democratic-leaning Chicago Times observed, "The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States."[62]

"In contrast, the Republican-leaning New York Times was complimentary and printed the speech.[56] In Massachusetts, the Springfield Republican also printed the entire speech, calling it "a perfect gem" that was "deep in feeling, compact in thought and expression, and tasteful and elegant in every word and comma". The Republican predicted that Lincoln's brief remarks would "repay further study as the model speech".[63]

"On the sesquicentennial of the address, The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, formerly the Patriot & Union, retracted its original reaction ("silly remarks" deserving "the veil of oblivion") stating: "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. ... the Patriot & Union failed to recognize [the speech's] momentous importance, timeless eloquence, and lasting significance. The Patriot-News regrets the error."[64][65]

Enjoy.

Foreign newspapers also criticized Lincoln's remarks. The Times of London commented: "The ceremony [at Gettysburg] was rendered ludicrous by some of the luckless sallies of that poor President Lincoln."[66]

[struggle]

Every semester my speech class is required to memorize it. An excellent example of compact, succinct rhetoric.

[Bobalu]

A good speech is a short speech

[Pollster1]

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

Sadly, we failed in that resolution. Because of that failure, we have a moral obligation to restore government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We owe it to those who went before us and to our children.

[HunterAsesino]

The “Republican-leaning New York Times” - it’s been a while since that was true!

[LS]

Lincoln's greatness in this speech---as so many others have noted---is that he tied the Declaration and the Constitution together by saying that the nation was "dedicated to a proposition."

In "A Patriot's History of the United States," Mike Allen and I give extensive coverage to Lincoln, a section that I'm quite proud of.

[DiogenesLamp]

I have always thought it odd that Lincoln started his speech that way. Do you know what happened four score and seven years prior to 1863?

A bunch of states seceded from the British Union. They were successful. It's not something I would be bringing up at that time, but for whatever reason, nobody seems to have noticed the irony.

[dfwgator]