The Gettysburg Address

The Everett Copy

Abraham Lincoln was not the primary speaker at the November 19, 1863, dedication of a national cemetery in Gettysburg, Pa. He was simply asked to deliver "a few appropriate remarks." The main speaker was Edward Everett, one the nation’s best orators. Everett later wrote Lincoln that, “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.”

Everett asked the president for a handwritten copy of his address so that it could be sold to raise money to care for sick and wounded soldiers. When Everett received the copy of the speech, he bound it in a book along with a copy of his own address to be sold at the Metropolitan Sanitary Fair in New York City. (If you look carefully at the Everett Copy, you can see “57” at the top of one page and “58” at the top of the other. These are the page numbers from when the speech was part of the book.)

The Everett Copy passed through the hands of several private owners over the next 80 years. Then in 1943, the owners offered to sell the copy to the state of Illinois for $60,000  (about $950,000 in 2021 dollars) so that it could be made accessible to the public for generations to come.

The state’s children helped raise the money. Over six months, they donated about $50,000, and Chicago businessman Marshall Field III contributed the rest of the $60,000 price. The state acquired the address in March 1944.

(Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum)

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Four score and seven years ago ...

One “score” is 20, so “four score and seven” means 87 years. This is a reference to the Continental Congress adopting the language of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 – 87 years, 4 months, and 16 days before Lincoln gave his famous speech.

Many other famous speeches have used some variation of this phrase, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, given at the Lincoln Memorial. King began his speech with the phrase “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Our fathers brought forth upon this continent ...

Lincoln is referring to the “Founding Fathers,” a phrase traditionally used to describe the leaders of the rebel colonies during the American Revolution. They included such figures as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin.

(Architect of the Capitol)

... the proposition that all men are created equal

Lincoln is reminding his audience of the nation’s ideals and the Declaration’s statement that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Ending slavery would move the United States a step closer to fulfilling the Declaration’s promise of liberty and equality, though it did nothing for free Blacks, women and many other groups who faced discrimination under the law.

(National Archives)

... any nation so conceived and so dedicated ...

Lincoln is saying the Civil War is not just about the United States’s future but is a test of whether any nation built on the promise of liberty and equality can survive.

We are met on a great battlefield ...

The speech took place at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, on Nov. 19, 1863. On July 1-3, about 100,000 Union troops and 75,000 Confederate troops had fought there for three bloody days. The combined size of the armies was similar to the number of Allied troops that crossed the English Channel on D-Day during World War II. One of every fifteen soldiers that landed in France that day became a casualty. The casualty ratio at Gettysburg was nearly one in three.

The National Park Service has connected modern Americans to the sacrifices of 1863 with a series of images that show the locations of the dead next to modern images of the same sites.

To see one of our historians discuss the tactics and events of the battle, click here.

(Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum)

... a final resting place ...

Lincoln delivered his address as part of a dedication for the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, created for some of the 3,100 Union soldiers killed in the battle. Confederate losses are more difficult to calculate but were certainly higher, with estimates ranging from 3,000-5,000 killed. The National Cemetery was reserved for Union dead, while most Confederates were reinterred elsewhere over time.

(Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum)

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... we cannot hallow this ground ...

Lincoln will soon ask his 15,000 listeners – and, by extension, all Northerners – to take on “a great task.” To prepare, he minimizes the importance of ceremonial actions like dedicating a cemetery.

The brave men, living and dead ...

Lincoln is connecting the dead soldiers being honored at Gettysburg with the hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers still putting their lives on the line. In essence, he is borrowing some of the nation’s sympathy for the dead and using it to support the troops in the field.

Approximately 2 percent of the pre-war population, most of them young men, died in the Civil War. About one in ten Americans enlisted, and of these, nearly a quarter were killed. A similar level of bloodshed today would see 7 million dead.

(Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

The world will little note nor long remember ...

Lincoln was sorely mistaken. Not only has the speech itself been remembered, but its beautiful language and sentiments have helped preserve the memory of the soldiers’ sacrifices.

Visitors can see the Gettysburg Address on the wall when they walk into the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. (National Park Service)

... for us, the living ...

Lincoln shifts to a new meaning of “dedicate.” He has told listeners that they cannot dedicate this ground – meaning set it apart and make it special – because that has been done by the men who fought at Gettysburg. Instead, he now asks them to dedicate themselves – meaning devote their strength – to continuing what the soldiers started.

The United States was much smaller in the 1860s than it is now. The Union states had about 23 million residents and the Confederate states had about 9 million, about a third of whom were enslaved.

This image, taken at the dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg National Cemetery, clearly shows the size of the crowd. (Library of Congress)

... so nobly advanced..

Lincoln’s speech seeks to make the war not just a fight against secession but for something more noble: liberty and equality throughout the world.

... the great task remaining ...

Lincoln begins asking the living to follow the example of the fallen and perform a task. That task is no longer simply preserving the Union. It is also proving that a nation dedicated to liberty and equality can survive.

... from these honored dead we take increased devotion ...

Lincoln is saying thousands of men have given their lives for a cause, so surely his audience can at least lend their support to the same cause. Furthermore, many in the audience had family and loved ones in the field, and knew each day could bring horrible news from the front. Lincoln was trying to inspire them to continue working for a better future.

(Library of Congress, The MET, and the National Park Service)

... the last full measure of devotion ...

Lincoln is referring to those who died for the Union cause. Their last act was to give up everything they possibly could for the Union. Lincoln wants his audience to "take increased devotion" and be inspired to continue fighting. One could argue Lincoln himself would later give his own “last full measure of devotion” when he fell to an assassin’s bullet.

Arlington National Cemetery (Arlington National Cemetery)

... this nation, under God ...

The Everett Copy is the first of the five surviving handwritten versions of the Gettysburg Address to include the words “under God.” In fact, all five copies are a little different, so it is impossible to determine precisely what he said that day. However, independent press reports of his speech (such as the Associated Press and the Boston Advertiser) did include “under God.”

The Chicago Tribune's printing of the Address clearly has the phrase "Under God" included (The Chicago Tribune)

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... a new birth of freedom ...

This is probably the most debated phrase in the entire speech. What exactly does Lincoln mean? Is he referring to America undergoing, in essence, a second founding? Is it a reference to ending slavery, a process that took a huge step when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863? Was he intentionally vague, leaving it for each person to picture whatever version of freedom they preferred?

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... of the people, by the people, for the people ...

Lincoln was not the first person to use a version of this phrase. In 1850, Theodore Parker, an abolitionist and Unitarian minister, had written about a “government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.” But it is Lincoln’s version that we remember today. It influences not just other speeches but even the core political documents of other nations. The constitution of France, for instance, promises “gouvernement du peuple, par le peuple et pour le peuple.”