Posted on 11/19/2017 6:23:02 AM PST by iowamark
On this day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivers his famous Gettysburg address. Did you know that no one knows exactly where he gave the speech? And no one knows precisely what he said? Several different transcripts of the speech exist, each with slightly different phrasing.
lincoln-11-19-3His speech wasn’t even supposed to be the main feature that day! Instead, a two-hour oration by a former Secretary of State, Edward Everett, was supposed to be the highlight.
Lincoln’s two-minute speech would go down in history. Everett’s has been mostly forgotten.
Perhaps Everett saw the writing on the wall? He wrote to the President the very next day, apparently already realizing the impact of Lincoln’s words. “Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you,” Everett wrote, “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.”
Both men had been slated to speak at a dedication ceremony for Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Union forces had won a battle there mere months earlier, but that battle had been a brutal, 3-day affair. Fifty-one thousand soldiers had been left dead or wounded.
It was a costly victory, to say the least.
Lincoln had prepared remarks, written on a slip of paper. Legend has it that he threw the address together as he rode on a train toward Gettysburg, but he actually spent a bit more time on it than that. By the time he got to the ceremony, he had prepared remarks that he had carefully considered, and he reportedly used them. But here’s the interesting part: Modern scholars aren’t sure which of the five known, still-existing transcripts Lincoln used that day—or potentially he could even have used an unknown, sixth transcript!
So what are these five known, still-existing transcripts?
Two are copies that Lincoln gave to his personal secretaries. Three others were written by Lincoln for charitable purposes, but he wrote them well after his November 19 address.
The version that is most often cited is the transcript that was requested by historian George Bancroft; he intended to use if at a fundraiser for soldiers. The request was fulfilled, but the final transcript was ultimately delivered to Bancroft’s stepson, Colonel Alexander Bliss. The so-called “Bliss copy” is the last known transcript written in Lincoln’s hand. It is also the only transcript that has his signature.
In this final text, Lincoln had removed one instance of the word “here,” which is in all other copies of the speech. Historian Garry Wills finds this last omission important: “[Lincoln] was still making such improvements,” He notes. It “suggests that he was more concerned with a perfected text than with an ‘original’ one.”
The Bliss text is the version that is emblazoned on the Lincoln Monument. It famously concludes:
“[W]e 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.”
Funny how old “Honest” Abe doesn’t mention that the war was “all about slavery” in his masterpiece speech. I guess the on going draft/race riots will put a damper on fairly tales. Nice speech tough.
At Gettysburg, the war was about whether “government by the people, of the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” To Lincoln, the American Republic of 1776 was in a contest with domestic and foreign dictatorships.
He gave his speech at the cemetery.
620,00 wasted young American lives so that their ancestors could be forever blamed for being racist and privileged....never forgiven for freeing the slaves with their blood.
At the core of Lincoln’s presidency was the issue of slavery and at the core of the civil war was the issue of slavery. Certainly, not every one was fighting for (or against) slavery, but at the very least they were fighting for (or against) the ancillary issues caused by slavery. I.E.-financial issues, states rights issues, succession issues, and yes,,,,,the moral issue of slavery, The point being that none of these things would have formented into the political storm that became the Civil War without the issue of slavery at its core.
I do agree that things are more complicated than today’s liberal historians make it seem. Robert E. Lee thought llittle of slavery, but strongly believed in his nation of Virginia. States rights was a core issue that brought many people to the battle field as well....most certainly. But, states rights to have slavery? To this day, a very reasonable political position is tainted with the stain of slavery.
Make no mistake. Lincoln had as an objective to get rid of slavery because getting rid of it solved so many other problems and really allowed our country to become what it is today. It’s too bad he wasn’t able to serve out his second term. It is very likely the KKK would not have risen and Jim Crowe laws would not have taken root if Lincoln lived just a few more years....that’s how significant and influential leader the man was.
Sadly, the legacy of slavery lives on to this day. Liberals use it as a battering ram against very reasonable political accommodations, against the police, as a means to excuse inner-city crime, and as a way to make a lot of otherwise very smart people feel guilty about simply holding people of color to high standards.
Since then, many politicians and academics in Britain have classified it as one of the greatest in the history of the English Language. There is a collection of statues in London at Parliament Square near the Houses of Parliament and the Palace of Westminster. Of the eleven statues there, only 2 are non Commonwealth Statesmen, Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln.
The statue was sculpted by Augustus Saint Gaudens and was a gift of the 'American People' made in 1920 after the British made the request for placement at Parliament Square.
This speech by Abraham Lincoln has been proclaimed by some pretty “Heavy Hitter” historians as the best speech ever written and given in the USA.
These last words in the speech give me goosebumps every time I read or hear them spoken..”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”.
This application of words is so critical relative the upcoming election in the state of Alabama in December, 2017. An American citizen, Roy Moore is assumed innocent until proven guilty by a legal jury of his American peers. Nothing else has bearing on these accusations, other then this confirmed truth when proved in the court of law. Every citizen legal voter in the great state of Alabama should and must cast their vote for Judge, Roy Moore on election day, December 12, 2017. Your freedom and future are at stake. “AMEN”
“At the core of Lincoln’s presidency was the issue of slavery “
Except is wasn’t. His inaugural address said so.
Tom DiLorenzo shines a lotta light on lincoln.
So say you. However the facts do not support that conclusion.
In Georgia the largest slave holding percentage in the South less than 15% of the population owned slaves. Most people never owned a slave. They were fighting for states rights and to repel an invading military force.
The South was not trying to overthrow the United States govt or take and occupy Northern territory or the US capital. They were trying to withdraw from the social compact called the Constitution which they had every right to do. That right was taken from them at the point of a gun. It does not mean they didn’t have that right and still have it today.
Lincoln didn’t give a rats azz about slavery until the war was not going well and the general mood of the Northern population was against continuing the conflict. He needed something to whip up sentiment so he could continue to raise money and keep the war going. So he used the abolitionists and slavery to advance his agenda. Its called politics.
I wonder if southerners felt at all represented in Lincoln’s government “by the people, of the people, and for the people”.
You’re going to like this wonderful government or we’ll kill you.
On of his more famous admirers, author Garry Wills, wrote:
Lincoln at Gettysburg “performed one of the most daring acts of open-air sleight-of-hand ever witnessed by the unsuspecting. Everyone in that vast throng of thousands was having his or her intellectual pocket picked. The crowd departed with a new thing in its ideological luggage, that new constitution Lincoln had substituted for the one they brought there with them. They walked off, from those curving graves on the hillside, under a changed sky, into a different America. Lincoln had revolutionized the Revolution, giving people a new past to live with that would change their future indefinitely.”
As a speech “for the ages”, the GA was a flowery mission statement no risk speech, non committal and very clever. In the context of November 1863 it was lacking and woefully inadequate. The contemporary critics of that speech were correct.
The man was an absolute genius with oratory. His modern-day equivalent would be Winston Churchill. Men who could move souls with their words.
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