event we commemorate this day has procured much of both, and shall procure in the onward course of human improvement more than we can now conceive of. For this—for the good obtained and yet in store for our race—let us rejoice! But let us rejoice as men, not as children—as human beings rather than as Americans—as reasoning beings, not as ignorants. So shall we rejoice to good purpose and in good feeling; so shall we improve the victory once on this day achieved, until all mankind hold with us the Jubilee of Independence.
Lincoln Rededicates the Union at Gettysburg
“…A new birth of freedom…”
“I shall be glad,” wrote orator Edward Everett to the president a day after the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, “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.” Lincoln replied, “In our respective parts yesterday, you could not have been excused to make a short address, nor I a long one….”
The back-of-the-envelope legend is strictly a legend; this carefully composed speech was not written on the way to the event. Noah Brooks, Lincoln’s favorite reporter, stated that some days before the November 19, 1863, dedication, he saw Lincoln in Washington and that the president told him his Gettysburg remarks were “written, ‘but not finished.’”
In an early draft, according to historian J. G. Randall, “It is for us, the living, to stand here” was changed to “…to be dedicated here.” After the speech was delivered, Lincoln made further revisions in the copy to be distributed to the Associated Press; it included “under God,” which he had added on the podium; perhaps he recalled Treasury Secretary Chase’s admonition to add a reference to the Deity to the Emancipation Proclamation, issued at the start of 1863.
The 266-word address opens with “Four score and seven,” adding a note of biblical solemnity to the number 87. It concludes with a succession of parallel phrases that may have been inspired by abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker, who in 1850 wrote, “This [American] idea, demands… a democracy, that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people….”
The speech can be read as a poem based on the metaphor of birth, death, and rebirth—with its subtle evocation of the resurrection of Christ—and focused on the theme of the nation’s rededication to the principle of freedom.
Four images of birth are embedded in its opening sentence: the nation was “
conceived
in liberty”; “
brought forth
,” or born, “by our
fathers
“; with all men “
created
equal.” This birth is followed by images of death—“
final resting
place
,” “who
gave their lives
,” “brave men, living and
dead
,” “these honored
dead
”—and by verbs of religious purification—“
consecrate… hallow
.”
After the nation’s symbolic birth and death comes resurrection: out of the scene of death, “this nation, under God, shall have a
new birth
of freedom” and thus “
not perish
,” but be immortal.
The central word, as Lincoln’s emendation of his early draft illustrates, is “dedicate”—used five times in the short speech, its meaning rooted in consecration, making the secular sacred by pledging it to God. The first two dedications are to the Declaration of Independence’s ideal—“that all men are created equal.” The third dedication centers on the purpose of the occasion at Gettysburg’s bloody battleground, “to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place.” The fourth and fifth are rededications to the ideals of the reborn nation: “to the unfinished work” and “to the great task remaining before us.”
Birth of a nation and its ideal; its symbolic death and purification in civil war; its rebirth in freedom with “increased devotion to that cause”—a profound and timeless idea, poetically presented in metaphor and a reverent
Lincoln Rededicates the Union at Gettysburg
“…A new birth of freedom…”
“I shall be glad,” wrote orator Edward Everett to the president a day after the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, “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.” Lincoln replied, “In our respective parts yesterday, you could not have been excused to make a short address, nor I a long one….”
The back-of-the-envelope legend is strictly a legend; this carefully composed speech was not written on the way to the event. Noah Brooks, Lincoln’s favorite reporter, stated that some days before the November 19, 1863, dedication, he saw Lincoln in Washington and that the president told him his Gettysburg remarks were “written, ‘but not finished.’”
In an early draft, according to historian J. G. Randall, “It is for us, the living, to stand here” was changed to “…to be dedicated here.” After the speech was delivered, Lincoln made further revisions in the copy to be distributed to the Associated Press; it included “under God,” which he had added on the podium; perhaps he recalled Treasury Secretary Chase’s admonition to add a reference to the Deity to the Emancipation Proclamation, issued at the start of 1863.
The 266-word address opens with “Four score and seven,” adding a note of biblical solemnity to the number 87. It concludes with a succession of parallel phrases that may have been inspired by abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker, who in 1850 wrote, “This [American] idea, demands… a democracy, that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people….”
The speech can be read as a poem based on the metaphor of birth, death, and rebirth—with its subtle evocation of the resurrection of Christ—and focused on the theme of the nation’s rededication to the principle of freedom.
Four images of birth are embedded in its opening sentence: the nation was “
conceived
in liberty”; “
brought forth
,” or born, “by our
fathers
“; with all men “
created
equal.” This birth is followed by images of death—“
final resting
place
,” “who
gave their lives
,” “brave men, living and
dead
,” “these honored
dead
”—and by verbs of religious purification—“
consecrate… hallow
.”
After the nation’s symbolic birth and death comes resurrection: out of the scene of death, “this nation, under God, shall have a
new birth
of freedom” and thus “
not perish
,” but be immortal.
The central word, as Lincoln’s emendation of his early draft illustrates, is “dedicate”—used five times in the short speech, its meaning rooted in consecration, making the secular sacred by pledging it to God. The first two dedications are to the Declaration of Independence’s ideal—“that all men are created equal.” The third dedication centers on the purpose of the occasion at Gettysburg’s bloody battleground, “to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place.” The fourth and fifth are rededications to the ideals of the reborn nation: “to the unfinished work” and “to the great task remaining before us.”
Birth of a nation and its ideal; its symbolic death and purification in civil war; its rebirth in freedom with “increased devotion to that cause”—a profound and timeless idea, poetically presented in metaphor and a reverent
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