Another Discussion Post--Due Today

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)

Perhaps the most famous speech in American history, the Gettysburg Address was considered a

failure by many at the time it was given. Presented at the dedication of the Battlefield at

Gettysburg, Lincoln was not even the featured speaker. His very short speech (only 10 sentences)

was overlooked by many.

Edward Everett (who gave a two hour oration just before) summed up the power of Lincoln’s

speech, however, when he said “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.”

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 battlefield 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

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.

1. How does Lincoln honor the battle of Gettysburg in his address? What did the soldiers fight

for in his opinion?

2. How does Lincoln connect the Battle of Gettysburg, the civil war, and the independence of

America? How does his view of America in this speech differ from that of the southern

leadership?