27. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, OF ILLINOIS. GETTYS

BURG ADDRESS

(Delivered at Gettysburg, Pa., November 19, 1863.)

THE year 1863 was the decisive year of the war. On January 1st President Lincoln issued his final emancipation proclamation; on July 4th General Grant received the surrender of Vicksburg, thus opening the Mississippi river and isolating the main States of the Confederacy from the Southwest; and on July 1st to 3d General Meade defeated Lee at Gettysburg in the greatest battle of the Civil War, and destroyed the last chance of the Confederates to invade the North in force.

Lee's retreat following the battle of Gettysburg, and Meade's pursuit of him, left thousands of dead to be buried by the Pennsylvania authorities; and Governor Curtin proposed to the Governors of the other sixteen States whose troops were engaged, that a portion of the field of battle be acquired and used as a national cemetery. The proposal met with hearty approval, and was carried out. The date set for the formal dedication of the cemetery was November 19th. Hon. Edward Everett was chosen as the orator for the occasion; and, in addition, President Lincoln as the Chief Executive of the nation was invited to "formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use by a few appropriate remarks." The invitation was accepted, and on the 18th Lincoln left Washington for Gettysburg by a special train. On the 19th a great procession was formed and

marched with military music to the new cemetery, where the program was carried out as arranged.

Mr. Everett was at this time in the height of his great powers; he had served ten years in Congress, been minister to England, Secretary of State under President Fillmore, United States Senator, and nominee of the Constitutional Union party in 1860 for Vice-President. The speech which he delivered was worthy alike of his fame and of the occasion. He discussed at length the battle, the origin and character of the war, and the object and consequences of the victory. For two hours he held his audience spellbound.

Then President Lincoln arose-before an audience of flagging attention and following one of the greatest orators of the day-to utter the formal dedication. What was expected to be a mere perfunctory utterance proved to be the vital heart of the occasion. "Then and there," say Lincoln's biographers, "the President pronounced an address so pertinent, so brief yet so comprehensive, so terse, so eloquent, linking the deeds of the present to the thoughts of the future, with simple words, in such living, original, yet exquisitely molded maxim-like phrases, that the best critics have awarded it an unquestioned rank as one of the world's masterpieces of rhetorical art." (Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, VIII, pp. 201-2.) Well might Mr.

Everett write to Lincoln next day, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

The preparation of Lincoln's address must have been a matter of considerable thought with him. A part of it was written before leaving Washington; but the latter half, it seems, was written out by the President, with the stub end of a lead pencil, on the crowded train which bore him to Gettysburg.

[ABRAHAM LINCOLN, at Gettysburg, Pa., November 15, 1863.]

"OURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought

F

forth upon 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 battle-field 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 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, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

28. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, OF ILLINOIS. SECOND

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

(Delivered at Washington, March 4, 1865.)

By March, 1865, it was evident that the war was nearing its end. Grant had justified his appointment as lieutenantgeneral in command of all the armies in the field (March, 1864) by doggedly forcing the Army of the Potomac to the vicinity of Richmond, where he was then slowly loosening Lee's hold upon Petersburg and the Confederate capital. Sherman meanwhile had, with Grant's consent, pushed from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and "from Atlanta to the sea" (November-December, 1864), wounding the Confederacy in its very heart. In spite of discouraging opposition within the Republican party, Lincoln had been triumphantly renominated and re-elected to the Presidency. Already his mind was busy with generous plans for that reconstruction of the Union which must follow the inevitable collapse and surrender of the Confederate forces.

It was in these circumstances that Lincoln composed and delivered his second inaugural address,—a document which Mr. Rhodes calls "the greatest of presidential inaugurals, one of the noblest of state papers." Lincoln himself, whose judgment was biased by no petty vanity of authorship, spoke of it in these terms: "I expect it to wear as well as -perhaps better than-anything I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. It is a

truth which I thought needed to be told; and as whatever of humiliation there is in it falls most directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it." (Morse, Abraham Lincoln, II, pp. 314-15.)

F

[ABRAHAM LINCOLN, at Washington, March 4, 1865.]

ELLOW COUNTRYMEN: At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented.

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war-seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish; and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow