Per Scriptum E. Wesley - Mackinac Center Intern
More than 51,000 Union and Confederate solders fell in the Battle of Gettysburg from July 1, 2, and 3, 1863, in what is the bloodiest battle in the North American continent. On November 19th, Edward Everett led a dedication service at the battlefield with a two hour speech. True to his humility, President Lincoln only spoke for two minutes, yet his message is one of the most endearing speeches in all US history. Lincoln memorialized the dead by giving hope to the living.
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." The American experiment in liberty had just begun. Would it last? To Lincoln, union was the only way liberty could survive. Using a Biblical principle, Lincoln firmly believed that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." From Lincoln's perspective, the war was to reunite brothers, but whether this was right or possible was the debate. However, whether "all men" would be "equal" was another element to the fight. Indeed, after January of 1863, union and freedom of slaves became two strands of the same cloth. Emancipation was in the wind for some, for others, a road of flames.
"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 here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it 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." Although put in Unionist terms, Lincoln does not bash the Confederates here either. For better or worse, the house was divided, and men were dying because of it. Remember Lincoln was speaking of the bloodiest moment in North American history. The solemnity of the occasion merited few words and much contemplation. Who could see such destruction without flinching at the cost? Duty required a cessation from toil, and an attention to what the toil really meant.
"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 can never forget what they did here." Lincoln's humility is most apparent in these sentences. As commander-in-chief, Lincoln's military might was unmatched on the continent, but as a man, his life was outweighed by the death of 51,000 others. Like so many American leaders of the time, Lincoln realized that sacrifice was stronger than leadership. As such, not even the commander-in-chief could have anything more significant to say than what had already been said by the dead. It was this spirit of humility that set apart American military command from that of European leadership. In Europe, the nobility were in command; in American, the noble in spirit led. American leaders were "from rags to riches." After all, Lincoln was raised in a log cabin. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was orphaned. European commanders led from the back; Jackson and other Americans from the front.
"It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. 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 shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The last full measure is to bring about a new birth of freedom. It is to preserve just government: a government of, by, and for people. Again, leaders must be servants first; slaves who set others free. The entire speech rings of Matthew 20:
"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave." - Matthew 20:25-27Some argue that Lincoln did not live up to these lofty ideals. I hear their arguments, but nevertheless, Lincoln stands out in American history as a man of impeccable character and convictions (beginning with that early event in his life when he saw a slave auction for the first time while running river-boats along the Mississippi River). As a historian from Lincoln State Park in Indiana said, more has been written about Abraham Lincoln than any other president in US history, including George Washington. Unfortunately, the Radical-Republicans did not "reconstruct" the South according to Lincoln's promise of freedom. I wonder how different it would have been if the Lincoln administration were allowed to bind up the nation's wounds.
Sources:
Image of Abraham Lincoln from Wikipedia
http://americancivilwar.com/north/lincoln.html
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=36
http://americancivilwar.com/getty.html
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/house.htm
I memorized the Gettysburg Address when I was a kid growing up in the public schools of Tennessee and assumed the things it said were true. That's when I was a child.
ReplyDeleteLooking back, from the perspective of having studied American history for more than sixty years, I realize how false Lincoln's speech really was. Dishonest Abe Lincoln was a master of political spin, whose words were the polar opposite of his deeds. Government of the people, by the people and for the people was exactly the thing he was trying to crush in his unconstitutional and brutal attack on the Confederate nation.
Lincoln's words are a mockery when one considers that he held 13,000 northern political prisoners, without trial or due process of law - just because they disagreed with his illegal war.
Famous American writer H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), said of the Gettysburg Address: “The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination - that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.”
Mr. Conn,
ReplyDeleteThanks for you informative comment! It is undeniable that Lincoln suspended the Constitution for the duration of the war. That, I certainly cannot congratulate! However, I think that the survival of the Union itself was put in peril by secession (after all, Maryland almost seceded). If Maryland had seceded, then what would have become of the U.S. Capitol? According to Col. Ernest and Trevor Dupuy’s Compact History of the Civil War, Jefferson Davis issued a call for 100,000 volunteers for a year’s military service just two days after Lincoln took office (obviously, Lincoln didn’t have time to react). The South was getting closer to forcing Lincoln into a position of national defense. With a narrow escape when it came to Maryland, the threatening mobilization of Southern troops, and the firing on Fort Sumter, Lincoln’s decision to declare war is, I think, to some degree excusable.
Being that I’m from southern Indiana, I hear both sides. :)
Wesley