The Gettysburg Address?

Question

What was it about?

and was he orrect when he said " the world will little not nor long remeber what we say here"?

Answer 1

SUMMARY:
Lincoln uses the occasion of the dedication of a soldiers' cemetery to briefly summarize his understanding of this war's meaning and to issue a call for people to (RE)dedicate themselves to finish what those soldiers fought for -- realizing the ideal of liberty ("all men are created equal") that the nation was founded on "four score and seven years" earlier.
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DETAILS

To understand the 'meaning' of the Gettysburg Address, we must recognize that Lincoln, in this speech, was reflecting on the meaning of the WAR in relationship to the nature of the NATION --the key to which, for Lincoln, is found in the words of the Declaration of Independence --"all men are created equal".

It is, actually, a brilliantly focused summation of the CENTRAL thoughts shaping Lincoln's political philosophy since at least 1854 (when Lincoln 'came back' to politics after the Kansas-Nebraska Act undid the Missouri Compromise, allowing slavery to spread north of 36'30"). His argument here is found in various forms from that year on.

A look at how this works out in the speech -

Lincoln frames his speech with his explanation of the nature of this nation -- beginning at its founding ('four score and seven years ago....'), and ending by looking to the future he seeks, and which he urges his listeners/countrymen to devote themselves to bringing about. In fact, the speech is neatly structured into three sections (past, present, future), each made up of three sentences. But note that the LAST sentence (third in the third/'future' section) is much longer than any other, as Lincoln seeks to drive home the point -- his call for people to rededicate themselves to this cause.

The nature of the nation, Lincoln declares at the start, is bound up with the PRINCIPLE or "proposition" on which he says the nation is established -- that "all men are created equal".

The MIDDLE (present part) of the speech is about the civil war then raging. He explains that war as a TEST of the proposition -- but not abstractly! Since that proposition is THE foundation of the nation, BOTH the nation's existence and that vital principle (which has implications for all of humanity). Lincoln is also saying that the war was about defending that proposition (and with it the nation), and even, in a sense of EXPANDING it, or realizing it MORE truly and fully (esp in the freeing of the slaves, which was even then happening). And the soldiers were, in fact, part of how that 'cause' was beginning to be advanced.

(Lincoln does not make an EXPLICIT connection with emancipation, but I think it's clear when the speech is set in its context -- the year of the Emancipation Proclamation AND in the midst of Lincoln's drive to have the 13th amendment passed-- and when you look at ALL the arguments Lincoln had made since at least the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It is also, I believe, part of the "new birth of freedom" --something MORE than the past-- that Lincoln calls his countrymen to dedicate themselves to.)

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Note that Lincoln understood the Declaration of Independence to be THE great founding document --the statement of FIRST PRINCIPLES. The Constitution then sought to establish a framework in which those principles could be put into effect as much as circumstances would allow. Of course, this meant tolerating slavery where it existed. But it ALSO meant looking to prevent slavery from spreading, and where it DID exist, setting it "on the path to extinction". (That's why it was so important to the Republicans in the 1850s that slavery NOT be allowed to expand into the territories.) At other times (esp. in his "Cooper Union Address" in 1860) Lincoln sought to argue from the founding fathers themselves that this was their view and expectation (e.g. by banning slavery from the Northwest Territories in 1787).
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As for whether "the world will little note. . " was correct. Well, in one sense obviously NOT. (Nor is it quite the fact that Lincoln thought his words insignificant. He knew the importance of such speeches for rallying the nation and put an ENORMOUS effort into getting them just right. He would often be making revisions/perfecting his remarks right up to the moment he had to deliver them.)

But I believe that his point is more that what the soldiers DID --and why-- is the important thing, the thing that will have real, lasting effects. If you agree with his argument about the war being both a test of the great "proposition" he claimed the nation was founded on and that the soldiers efforts were the key MEANS by which the nation, and WITH it that ideal, was going to survive, then he was RIGHT to put more emphasis on "what they did here" to accomplish that end. Without THEIR effort, the nation and the ideal falls.... and his words don't mean much. And note that "remembering" what they did is not about knowing the details of the battle, but about the IMPORTANCE of it all, and about WHAT they fought for.

(By the way, if "what WE say here" is referring to the WHOLE of what was said at the ceremony -- including Everett's long [though eloquent] speech that preceded Lincoln's -- well, how much of all that DO we actually remember?!)

Answer 2

The Gettysburg Address was a dedication speech for a Civil War cemetery delivered in November, 1863. The war was not over, and would go on another year and a half. The world little remembered everything said at that ceremony except for this most powerful and moving speech, which has stood as one of the finest examples of composition in the English language.

Answer 3

The speech was primarly "a few words at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg". Lincoln was not the main speaker, that was the noted orator Edward Everett - who spoke for 2 hours, which was why Lincoln's speech was so short. However Lincoln, ever the consumate politician, used the speech to put the war into some sort of context and to rally a nation that was tired of the war - and for the north at least, tired of mostly losing the war.

Clearly the world (well, the US at least) has "long remembered....." despite Lincoln himself saying that his speech "won't scour" immediately after he'd made it. What he was trying to say of course, is summed up in the following line; "It is for us the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced".

Answer 4

It is not that long or hard to figure out. Have a read:


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.

Answer 5

Well, obviously if you are learning about the Gettysburg Address, don't you think, the world remembered it??

And speaking of that, do your own homework.

Answer 6

President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address at the end of the American Civil War.

Naw! It wasn't important--NOT!

Read it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address

Answer 7

Hey! Someone in my Twitter feed posted this page so I came to take a look. I'm definitely enjoying the information. I'm book-marking and will be tweeting it to my followers!

Answer 8

Yes he was correct.
America remembers, and rightly so, but the majority of people in the rest of the world don't know and don't care about what was said.