Fourscore 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 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.
---A. Lincoln
Excellent! Beautiful!!
Isn't it amazing how much he said, in so few words?
Gary Wills wrote an interesting book about that 300 word speech; since then books have been written about his Second Inaugural Address (in my opinion his greatest oration) and more recently an excellent book by Harold Holzer about his pre-presidential tour de force Cooper Union speech. The Cooper Union one was a lengthy exposition, incorporating a large amount of reall historical heavy lifting; Lincoln had spent months researching and then composing his Cooper Union speech, and indeed it was the first look that the sophisticated eastern establishment got of the prairie lawyer with the funny twang and the high-pitched voice....and it can fairly be said that Cooper Union formally launched his presidential campaign, and indeed (between it, and the Brady image he had made while in NYC) made him president.
The lawyer/poet/political trimmer/populist/whig/spouse of a strong-willed woman/indulgent father/ice cold son/commander-in-chief/re-inventor of America Lincoln is a subject which has never bored me, and I suppose never will.
Posted by: brian stouder | Saturday, November 20, 2004 at 11:06 PM
Brian! You made it over. Great! Welcome!
Wills' book is one of my old favorites. I missed the Holzer book but I'll go find it now. Another good book you might enjoy is actually a novel. Abe. By Richard Slotkin. Does a beautiful job of depicting the young Lincoln's intellectual and emotional growth toward the Lincoln we know, and a really fine and subtle job of showing him acquiring his Lincolnesque command of language.
Posted by: Lance | Sunday, November 21, 2004 at 04:23 PM