For the first time in eight years, the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States hold a summit conference. However, the meeting boded well for the Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. World War II. Art, Literature, and Film History. Remember that the population in was one-tenth of what it is now. If one were to translate the death toll from the Civil War into today's population figures, it would not be in the thousands, or the tens of thousands, or the hundreds of thousands.
It would be 7. We are familiar today with the tendency of democratic peoples to tire of war, to quail before its terrible blood price. But the problem was not limited to the passivity or hopelessness of grief. There was active resistance to the continuance of the war.
In the immediate wake of the victory at Gettysburg, riots over the draft broke out in New York City. Over four days in the middle of that July, civilians were killed, including 11 black citizens who were lynched by angry mobs; hundreds of blacks fled the city; upwards of 2, people were injured; and 50 buildings burned to the ground.
Some said the New York draft riots turned the Union victory into a Confederate one. Many college students today do not pick up on this fact. Not knowing much history, but aware that Lincoln is beloved for his kindliness and his summons "to bind up the nation's wounds," they tend to read Lincoln's Second Inaugural back into the Gettysburg Address.
They assume that he is commemorating all the fallen and they like him for his supposed inclusiveness, especially in contrast to the bombast and arrogance of Pericles. Perhaps their misreading might be excused, since a most unusual war speech it is. Lincoln never mentions the enemy, or rather he mentions them only by implication. When he speaks of "those who here gave their lives that that nation might live," his audience then would have been acutely aware that there were others who gave their lives that that nation might die, that it might no longer be the United States.
The cemetery that was dedicated at Gettysburg was exclusively a Union cemetery. In fact, in the weeks before the dedication, the townspeople had witnessed the re-interment process, as thousands of the battle dead were exhumed from the shallow graves in which they had hastily been placed by those same local citizens back in the sweltering days of July.
As they were uncovered, Union bodies were painstakingly identified and separated from Confederate bodies. While the rebels were simply reburied, coffinless, deeper in the ground where they were found to be reclaimed later by their home states , the loyal dead were removed, further sorted into their military units, and placed in coffins and tidy lines, awaiting honorable burial in the new cemetery.
Lincoln's abstraction from the enemy highlights the very abstract character of the entire speech. No specifics are given. There isn't a proper noun to be found, with the single exception of God. Thus, there is no mention of Gettysburg, just "a great battle-field. And although the opening clause, "four score and seven years ago," does refer to a specific date, Lincoln has obscured it by giving the lapse of time in Biblical language and then by requiring the listener to subtract 87 from in order to arrive at the date of The tremendous abstraction or generality of the speech is part of what explains its ability to speak to people in different eras and cultures who have no connection to the events at Gettysburg, and yet feel, as Lincoln might say, that they are "blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh" of those spoken of there, or more accurately of those spoken to there.
The addressees of the speech are identified simply as "we," "the living. He summons the living to "the unfinished work" and swears them to "the great task remaining. The abstraction of the Gettysburg Address is in marked contrast to the impromptu speech that Lincoln gave on July 7th, right after the victory, when residents of the District of Columbia assembled outside the White House to serenade him.
This was before the era of the Secret Service and massive barricades around the White House, when interaction between presidents and ordinary citizens was much more intimate.
After thanking the visitors, he says:. How long ago is it? After mentioning by name Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, Lincoln goes on to describe the significance of the victory:. Gentlemen, this is a glorious theme, and the occasion for a speech, but I am not prepared to make one worthy of the occasion. The first paragraph of the Gettysburg Address consists of only one sentence, but it's a doozy. It describes the past, the nation's beginnings. What Lincoln called "the birthday of the United States of America" in the serenade speech has been transformed into a sophisticated, poetic metaphor that refers to three distinct moments: conception, birth, and baptism.
The past that Lincoln refers to is a past that stretches back before living memory. Lincoln's decision to formulate the date in this way accentuates the fact that the founding is now beyond anyone's direct experience. The Lyceum Address, delivered a quarter-century earlier by a young Lincoln, was also about the founding. There, Lincoln reflected on the difficulties the nation would face once those who had personally participated in the revolution were gone.
In keeping with this insight into impermanence, Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address does not try to conjure up the drama of the revolution. Instead, he substitutes more peaceful, natural imagery: What happened in was that "our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation. While Lincoln is the greatest of constitutionalists, he considers the Declaration our foundational text.
Note that although Lincoln acknowledges the land "this continent" , he does not suggest that the nation emerges from out of the soil. Our founding is not like the old myths of autochthony where the people were said to spring forth from the earth, like the Spartoi of Thebes sown from the dragon's teeth. Our nation is "on" the continent, not "from" or "out of" it. Ours is a uniquely ideational founding, based on declaratory words, which Lincoln in his fragment on "The Constitution and the Union" calls " the word, ' fitly spoken.
A number of commentators have argued that Lincoln's language suggests that we have the founders for our fathers and the continent for our mother; they regard "brought forth on" as equivalent to begat or sired.
But "to bring forth" is another common Biblical phrase that, from Genesis forward, refers to the female role of parturition, or in the case of plants, to the visible appearance of fruit. There are even verses that apply the obstetrical metaphor politically, describing the national destiny of Israel, as in Micah "Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail Lincoln's next two clauses mention two key ideas: liberty and equality, each of which is linked to the dominant metaphor of birth.
Casting back before the advent moment in to the moment of conception, Lincoln says the nation was "conceived in Liberty. How literally should this language of sexual congress be taken?
Of course, "to conceive" can denote either a physical or a mental phenomenon: becoming pregnant or taking a notion into the mind.
Before the nation could be brought forth into practical realization, it had to be thought of or imagined. Whence arose the concept? According to Lincoln, it originated "in Liberty. The result is that "Liberty" and "God" are, in effect, the only capitalized words, since none of the sentence-starting words would normally be capitalized. Why does Lincoln incarnate liberty in this way and what does it mean to be "conceived in Liberty"?
Whenever the interpretation of Lincoln is at issue, the Bible is a good starting place. Psalms speaks of being conceived in sin: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. In Luke , the angel tells Mary, "And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son," and in Matthew , the angel assures Joseph that "that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
According to Lincoln's redaction, the new nation was conceived not in sin or sorrow but in liberty, although given the use that humans make of their liberty, there might not be much difference between the terms. Beneath the beautiful thought that the nation was conceived in the pure womb of liberty there lurks the afterthought evoked by the distant resonance of Psalm 51's conceived in sin. That psalm, known as the Miserere, is the most famous of the seven penitential psalms.
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 here 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.
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Lincoln delivered the address on November 19, He was in Gettysburg to dedicate a national military cemetery to the Union soldiers who fell at the Battle of Gettysburg four months earlier. Lincoln goes back in time—not to the signing of the Constitution, but to the Declaration of Independence.
The Constitution, in forming our government, was the product of many compromises…most notably, slavery. In contrast, the Declaration of Independence declares our enduring national values. In one sentence, Lincoln summarizes the American project: liberty for all and equality of all.
First, the United States is unique. No nation was ever founded on a commitment to liberty and equality. And the Civil War was a trial to see if a nation based on such lofty ideals could survive. In three days of fighting, 51, Americans on both sides—Union and Confederate—were killed, wounded, captured, or missing.
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