American Reflections: The Gettysburg Address

“Four score and seven years ago….” So begins President Lincoln’s greatest speech and one of the most important speeches in American history. The Gettysburg Address was more than just a political speech however. In a time before media advisers and professional speechwriters President Lincoln had a heart felt conversation with an America questioning its identity and its resolve during the tragedy of the Civil War.

In the speech President Lincoln stated, “that the world would little note, nor long remember what we say here.” A few hundred words written on the back of a plain envelope must have seemed so simple in 1863, yet the strength of these words hold true even today.

President Lincoln is now admired as one of our greatest leaders, yet in 1863 President Lincoln was loathed by Northerner or Southerner alike. Some looked upon Lincoln as "less than intelligent..a country bumpkin." The Civil War seemed to be going terrible for the North. Elected representatives, former military leaders, and everyday citizens had grown weary of the war. Charges of mismanagement, poor battlefield leadership, and accusations that the soldiers of the North lack the commitment and the desire to win.

There was tremendous infighting within President Lincoln’s administration and numerous conflicts with Congress. Many advisers warned President Lincoln not to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, and President Lincoln suspension of Habeas Corpus in 1861 infuriated Congress and the Supreme Court. In fact the Supreme Court ruled the suspension of Habeas Corpus “unconstitutional,” stating that the writ could not be suspended without the approval of Congress. President Lincoln ignored the Supreme Court, an act that surely would have brought on the wrath of the ACLU.

Too many times President Lincoln stood alone in his convictions, and paid dearly with his popularity. Yet we know very little of the “negative” aspects of Lincoln’s endeavors that helped ensure “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.”

In November of 1863, weighted down by the burdens of our Civil War, President Lincoln reminded us of our obligations to all nations seeking liberty and hoping for a chance to be a free republic when he said “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

The Gettysburg Speech was meant to honor those soldiers that died during that battle that was fought between July 1 and July 3, of 1863. But the truth of the speech was to also remind us, the living, “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.”

Something to ponder this 4th of July.