Seven score and thirteen years ago: The Gettysburg Address was delivered on November 19, 1863

VA Viper ^ | 11/19/2016 | HarpyGoddess

[harpygoddess]

Today is the anniversary of President Lincoln's delivery of his "brief remarks" at the dedication of the new national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

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 other 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 died that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we can not 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.

~Abraham Lincoln ("The Gettysburg Address," 19 November 1863)

[harpygoddess]

Includes a comparison to to Thucydides' account of Pericles' 430 B.C. funeral oration at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War, a retraction from a local newspaper for an 1863 article calling the Gettysburg address "silly remarks" (with the retraction written in the style of Gettysburg Address), and a brief documentary exhibiting most of the available photographs of Lincoln, some photos of the battlefield, and several (non-photographic) illustrations from contemporaneous newspaper accounts. The documentary also describes the historical context of the speech and Lincoln's feeling that it had been a failure.

[Tucker39]

The link leads to a nice page with several rare photos. However, the photo that shows dead soldiers on the battlefield has a typo in the caption. The scene is from July 1863, not 1963.

[Lisbon1940]

If you add that to the four and seven, then you get twelve score. Lincoln was doing the new math.

[IronJack]

The shame is that there is no recorded version of Lincoln delivering this speech. His voice is always portrayed in the movies as deep and sonorous, but I've read histories that describe it a much more airy, even lilting.

But regardless of the delivery vehicle, these words are among some of the most profound ever spoken. Lincoln and Winston Churchill rank among the world's greatest wordsmiths.

[pepsi_junkie]

I always thought the address was given on the anniversary of the battle, i.e. in July. I didn’t know it was November. Must have been a crisp day in PA.

[Future Snake Eater]

From what I’ve heard/read about Lincoln’s voice, it seems like Daniel Day-Lewis nailed it in “Lincoln.”

[IronJack]

I guess we’ll never know, since there is no existing recording of him speaking.

[Future Snake Eater]

In the decent Michael Crichton book “Timeline,” the Heartless Corporate Jackass Guy sends video cameras through time to get footage of key moments in American history for promotional materials. The Gettysburg Address is one of those moments and he bitches at his people that they can’t use that footage b/c Lincoln sounds like Mickey Mouse.

[DiogenesLamp]

But regardless of the delivery vehicle, these words are among some of the most profound ever spoken. Lincoln and Winston Churchill rank among the world's greatest wordsmiths.

Profound? Ironic is more accurate. The words "Four Score and Seven Years ago" refer to 1776. You know, when a group of slave owning states broke away from the United Kingdom and whose armies were led by a slave owning general from Virginia.

In other words, Independence, the very thing over which Lincoln killed 750,000 people to prevent.

It is more profane than profound. It takes unmitigated gall to speak of US Independence from the United Kingdom while celebrating a battle which highlights the George III shoe on the Lincoln foot.

It is a farce. It would be funny were it not so tragic.

[EveningStar]

bump

[IronJack]

Yes, profound. Lincoln was not responsible for the Civil War. It had been coming for decades, and he just stepped into the office when it all exploded. So his praise of "these honored dead" is entirely fitting.

Nor did the United States invent slavery. It had been a common practice in just about every corner of the globe for thousands of years, and the American colonies inherited it from their European ancestors. It was largely through the gore of the Civil War that it was abolished.

If you believe that Lincoln fought the war to prevent the abolition of slavery, you need to reread your history. Right-side up this time.

[minnesota_bound]

Abraham Lincoln did not use the word “I” even one time.
Imagine if obama was asked to give a speech that day. The dead would have gotten up and left to find a new spot to rest.

[minnesota_bound]

From the article. This shows he is a muslim and a small small man. Ken Burns should have called him on it.

obama: Curiously enough, in his version of the speech, President Barack Obama’s delivery contained an omission - in a line that every other celebrity delivered as “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom” (click here for proof of that), the President left out the words “under God.”

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes, profound. Lincoln was not responsible for the Civil War. It had been coming for decades, and he just stepped into the office when it all exploded.

Lincoln made a deliberate act which he fully knew would start that war. There was no reason for a war. The Southern states wanted independence, and the bulk of the nation at the time was all in favor of letting them have it.

Lincoln caused the war, and from what I have been reading for the last year or so, he did so deliberately, and for economic reasons.

So his praise of "these honored dead" is entirely fitting.

The Union soldiers that died did so in an effort to prevent other people's freedom. I think the cause for which people died is important in deciding whether or not they are due honor.

If you believe that Lincoln fought the war to prevent the abolition of slavery, you need to reread your history. Right-side up this time.

I did not say a single word about Slavery. Slavery did in fact have nothing to do with the reason Lincoln sent 35,000 men to invade the South.

Trying to steer any discussion about the civil war into a referendum on the issue of slavery is simply dishonest. There were five Union slave states in which slavery continued to exist after it had been abolished in the Southern States. One would think that if the great moral issue moving hundreds of thousands of men to kill each other were about slavery, they could have started the war in the Union slave state of Maryland, and saved themselves a lot of trouble by having shorter supply lines.

The war was about money. An independent South would directly remove about 300 million dollars per year from New York's economy, just for starters. As newly capitalized Southern industry grew, the Southern states would pose a direct competition threat to the North's industrial base and economic production.

The North went to war because the business interests of the Washington/Boston power corridor absolutely needed a war. It was the only way they could save their money stream built on the protectionist policies of Washington.

Look up "Mercantilism." That was the philosophy that had enriched the Northern states at the expense of the Southern states.

Let me paint an even worse picture for you. An Independent South would have began to supply goods and material to the Midwestern states through traffic on the Mississippi, and this would have cut out the New York to Chicago supply chain. It would have had serious and severe economic repercussions for both New York and Chicago, and eventually it would have brought the Midwestern states under the sphere of influence of the Southern states instead of the Northern ones. They likely would have eventually joined the Confederacy, leaving behind a rump Union.

The North faced a serious economic threat from the South, and they went to war to stop it. That it was fought about "slavery" is just propaganda for the naive. It was fought to prevent an economic challenger to the Empire State's economic hegemony.

See this map? 3/4ths of the money represented by that pile of coins on New York came from Southern state exports to Europe. Independence would cause that trade to move South to Charleston, cutting New York out of the picture.

The "shadow government" of New York/New England business interests would not allow that to happen. They couldn't afford to allow that to happen. They would be economically wrecked if the South became independent.

[IronJack]

The South had been attacking federal military installations well before the ostensible causus belli at Fort Sumter. While I certainly agree that the Civil War was not about slavery, and its root cause was very likely economic (aren’tall wars?), I’m skeptical about New York’s dominance of the Lincoln administration. I’d be more inclined to credit the South’s fear that enforced Federalism would inevitably mean abolition, with its impact on the profitability of the region’s mainstay agriculture.

The South was no threat to the North, speaking industrially, although there were certainly mercantile considerations that would have disturbed the Yankees.

In the end, Lincoln had to decide whether the Union was inviolable or dissoluble at will, as Andrew Jackson had had to decide a few decades earlier.
Yes, that can be construed as a matter of liberty, and it’s very possible Federalism was the wrong solution. But I’m hesitant to assign him such mercenary motives as you do.