Document 23 - The Gettysburg Address (1863)

The Battle of Gettysburg marked a turning point in the Civil War. In one of the bloodiest battles of the war, the Union army forced General Lee to lead the Confederate army out of the North for the last time. Although hard fighting went on for two years after Gettysburg, the course of the war had changed. The Union gained the advantage. Four months after the battle that took thousands of lives, Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg to dedicate a 17-acre national cemetery for the soldiers who had died there. In his speech, Lincoln expressed many of the feelings and values that we still have today. Despite Lincoln’s prediction that “the world will little note” what was said at Gettysburg, his words have become immortal. In particular, Lincoln’s plea for a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” is often a battle cry in the struggle for freedom.

 

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 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.

Questions for Discussion

1. How does Lincoln describe the soldiers who died at Gettysburg?
2. What does Lincoln ask of his listeners?
3. Why was the Gettysburg Address a speech of reconciliation?