"The World Will Little Note..."

Abraham Lincoln - November 1863

150 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.  The speech itself is short--a mere 271 words.  There are no pictures of Lincoln actually giving the speech and the story is that the reason is because the photographers did not bother to take any pictures because they thought they had a lot more time.

Apparently there is a big campaign here in Utah to get people to memorize the Gettysburg Address.  While I laud the effort, the name of the campaign is too hideous to include in my blog ("Are You Getty Ready?").  I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it does.  But my personal feelings are beside the point.

At the half time of the BYU football game last Saturday, they recited the Gettysburg Address.  I was struck by this line from the speech:

• "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."

It's not often that one gets to disagree with Abraham Lincoln.  But I do and I am right and he is wrong.  The simplicity, sincerity, and majesty of Lincoln's words in that Civil War cemetery to dedicate the grave sites of the fallen soldiers has endured.

Indeed, it is carved into the granite walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.  His speech has lifted and inspired generations of Americans for 150 years and will continue to do so for at least another 150.

So many great quotes come from that speech--including expressions that are part of Americana.  Here are a few of my favorites:

• "Four score and seven years ago..."
• "...we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground..."
• "It is for us the living..."
• "...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

I have been to the battlefield at Gettysburg several times.  It is a remarkable place.  The battle marked the "high water" mark of the Confederacy.  General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army never advanced further north than Gettysburg.  After being stopped at Gettysburg, Lee retreated to Virginia and never launched another major offensive effort.  

The battle of Gettysburg turned the tide of the Civil War and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address helped launch the process of rebuilding and healing our nation.  It continues to do so today.  Mr. President, I'm so glad that you were wrong.  We do remember what you said 150 years ago today!

One of only two confirmed photographs of Abraham Lincoln at the Gettysburg Cemetery.
This was taken about three hours before the speech.

Here is the full text of the Gettysburg Address:

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 that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not 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.

Happy Gettysburg Address Day!