Lincoln’s Gettysburg Eloquence or Concise Poignant and Honest

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Eloquence, an American Presidential address that was a mandatory memorization, when a young Bummer was in grade school, was undoubtedly one of the easiest of early educational exercises, because the text was Concise, Poignant and above all else, Honest in the extreme. President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, became not only the defining moment at the dedication of the Battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and as one current blogger states, “delivered the most famous speech ever made by a U.S. president. Universally regarded as a triumph of genius and brevity, Abraham Lincoln’s stirring Gettysburg call for national reconciliation in the midst of the Civil War was a 272-word masterstroke of empathy, statesmanship and diplomacy.”

Lincoln’s brief and simple address, was probably described best after his death, in a eulogy given on June 1, 1865 by Senator Charles Sumner as he referred to the most famous speech ever given by President Abraham Lincoln. In this eulogy on the slain president, he called the Gettysburg Address a “monumental act.” He said Lincoln was mistaken that “the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here.” Rather, the Bostonian remarked, “The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech.”

There are five certified copies of Lincoln’s speech, the following is referred to as the Bliss Copy and is the one that is most often reproduced. Read it slowly and carefully, several times, you will understand why this “old bummer” yearns for an eloquence that doesn’t exist on teleprompters and especially for political leaders that command a following of citizens that demand a transparent government, of the people, by the people and for the people.

“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 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 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.”

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

Bummer