Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America (1992)

This 1992 book is excellent, and appears definitive on its subject. This book also contains Edward Everett's speech (delivered on the same occasion)--one I had never heretofore read. It is a great speech, full of verbiage i found tremendoulsy moing. Thus this entire book is well worth reading ( )

It may seem a little surprising that an entire book could be devoted to a speech that took only a few minutes to deliver and comprised 272 words, but as I was drawn to the Gettysburg Address from my high school days and consider it one of the greatest ever delivered, I decided to give it a try.

Wills sets the stage before analyzing the speech. The battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 took three days and produced 50,000 casualties, roughly equal numbers from both sides. 50,000. It was of course a pivotal battle, pushing the Confederates out of the North and turning the tide of the war, which could otherwise have been won by the South. Four months later a cemetery was to be dedicated, and the principal speaker for the day was to be former secretary of state Edward Everett, a member of the intelligentsia who like many in those days was an adherent of classical Greek revival. Everett proceeded to talk for two hours from memory, as was his style. Lincoln was there to speak afterwards to make the dedication more formal, but of course stole the show in his simple, profound way.

As Wills explains, Lincoln truly understood compression and restraint. In one of the sections of the book he maps the speech to classical Greek oratory, how he ‘got it’ far better than Everett, and noting the parallels between his speech and Pericles’ funeral oration during the Peloponnesian War. In another he shows how the speech is self-referential throughout, interlocking the lines in a way which amplified their meaning. This may sound a bit dry to some but I found it very interesting. Wills is insightful throughout, from relating the opening clauses of the speech to Psalm 90, to analyzing Lincoln’s other speeches, including the “before and after” version of his first Inaugural speech; originally penned by William Seward, and improved considerably by Lincoln.

The historical context for all of this is provided, along with the excellent point from the Southern perspective:
“Some think, to this day, that Lincoln did not really have arguments for union, just a kind of mystical attachment to it. That was the charge of Southerners, who felt they had a better constitutional case for secession than he had for compelling states to remain.”

Lincoln’s assertion of the Federal Government over the States was unprecedented and changed America forever, the fuzziness of the ‘rights’ by which he did this, his ambiguous nature of his views on slavery, his ability to see things from a larger perspective, the poetry in his words, and his vulnerability all make him fascinating to me, and Wills brings all of this out.

Quotes:
First, the speech itself. I get goosebumps starting from “But in a larger sense…”, and then continuing to “the world will little note…”, “…the last full measure of devotion”, and then of course the ending. It is absolutely brilliant.

“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 battlefield 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 the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate – we cannot consecrate – we cannot 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 do here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for the living, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who have 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.”

On oneness, from a poem Lincoln wrote in earlier years:
“The very spot where grew that bread
That formed my bones, I see.
How strange, old field, on thee to tread
And feel I’m part of thee.”

On Lincoln’s view of slavery:
“Lincoln was accused during his lifetime of clever evasions and key silences. He was especially indirect and hard to interpret on the subject of slavery. The puzzled his contemporaries, and has infuriated some later students of his attitude.”

It is clearly hard to read the following lines, from Lincoln, in 1858, as he ran for an Illinois senate unsuccessfully against Stephen Douglas, prior to his Presidential election in 1860. In Lincoln’s defense, Douglas was accusing Lincoln of being an abolitionist in a state that had just voted ten years before, in 1848, to deny all free blacks entry to the state, and Lincoln was actually the liberal in this debate … but still…

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way, the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarrying with white people, and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of political and social equality … and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

And of course the well-known lines:
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by feeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”

On the other hand…:
“At the framing and adoption of the constitution, they forbore to so much as mention the word ‘slave’ or ‘slavery’ in the whole instrument. … Thus, the thing is hid away, in the constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or a cancer, which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death; with the promise, nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at the end of a given time.”

And:
“They [the fathers] did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all men were actually enjoying the equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it, immediately, upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.”

Lincoln on war a year before Gettysburg; as Wills points out, he had no illusions as to war’s ‘nobility’:
“Actual war coming, blood grows hot, and blood is spilled. Thought is forced from old channels into confusion. Deception breeds and thrives. Confidence dies, and universal suspicion reigns. Each man feels an impulse to kill his neighbor, lest he be killed by him. Revenge and retaliation follow.”

Lastly, on Lincoln’s poetic expression, the first being an example of parenthetical emphasis (the ‘fervently do we pray’ part), and also grammatical inversion (e.g. instead of wording it as ‘We fondly hope and fervently pray’):
“Fondly do we hope, (fervently do we pray), that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.”

“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.”

And finally this one; may we all react to difficult things in life with the ‘better angels of our nature’:
“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” ( )

Read parts of this for a university history class. Wills explores the significance of the Gettysburg Address, and the way that those 260 words re-defined the way many Americans viewed the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, and what it meant to be American. Pretty interesting, although I wasn't always in love with his writing style. ( )

The Gettysburg Address is one of the finest speeches of mankind. Never was Lincoln more melodic and more profound. In 272 words, Lincoln rejuvenated and updated Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, transforming its aspirational "conceived in liberty" and "all men are created equal" into reality. In contrast to the European hymn "Ode to Joy" by Friedrich Schiller, Lincoln's government by the people, of the people and for the people eschews the idea of solidarity. I hoped Barack Obama to be the one to remove the unspoken qualifier of the "government by the (rich) people, of the (rich) people and for the (rich) people". Alas no, the Gettysburg Address remains the reference.

Garry Wills has written an elegant primer to the address in five chapters. The first chapter places the address as a successor to Greek thought. Willis' conservative roots probably prevent him from considering Jeffersonian and French elements (much closer in my view than the Greek influence). The second chapter introduces the 19th century's culture of death. Willis, however, neglects to note the crucial difference and novelty of Civil War graves: The US Civil War is one of the first wars to mark and name graves of common soldiers. The Napoleonic soldiers were buried in mass graves and only their officers deigned worthy of grave stones. The US Civil War sees the emergence of both the necessary paperwork to identify the dead and the democratic ambition to honor all soldiers as individuals. The third chapter is on much stronger ground and deals with the idealism and transcendentalism of Lincoln's message. Lincoln's dedication is much more than a consecration of lives sacrificed. It is a mission statement for mankind (similar to Ode to Joy). The fourth chapter reveals Lincoln's message of reconciliation and redemption. Lincoln tried to reforge and reunite the nation (a mission unfortunately cut short in Ford Theater). The fifth and final chapter discusses Lincoln's revolutionary style. The Gettysburg Address, in contrast to Everett's flamboyant romantic text, is a thoroughly modern (international style) text. Reading Everett's flowery words is a chore, Lincoln's a delight. Willis explains why this is the case. The book's appendices offer helpful guides to where the address was delivered, the textual variants as well as other funeral orations. Overall, an interesting companion to a masterwork. The only letdown is the cover featuring Lincoln's meeting with McClellan after the battle of Antietam. Off by a year and a battle. ( )

My annual Lincoln Day book for 2009 is Lincoln at Gettysburg (1992) by cultural historian Garry Wills (previously, I've read Wills' works on Catholicism Why I'm A Catholic and Papal Sin). In this book Wills sets out to analize the 272 words spoken by Lincoln when he consecrated the Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863. In a prologue, Wills sums up the events of Lincoln's visit to Gettysburg. Here he debunks some common myths. Lincoln did not write his speech on the back of the envelope en route to Gettysburg. In fact, Lincoln loathed extemporaneous speech and spent much time preparing his words including this speech which he probably drafted prior to leaving Washington. The other myth is that the crowds were shocked by the brevity of Lincoln's remarks especially in comparison to the lengthy oration by Edward Everett. According to the programs and contemporary accounts, Everett was the primary speaker of the day with Lincoln only expected to make a few ancillary remarks to officially dedicate the cemetery.

It's what Lincoln made of those few remarks that Wills dedicates the rest of the book to explicating. Wills sees Lincoln's funeral oratory in the tradition of Greek Revival then in vogue. Lincoln's address is compared favorably to the tradition of the ancients such as Pericles in that it contrasts things as the mortal and immortal, the exceptionalism of Americans, word and deed, and life and death. The culture of death in 19th-century American - and especially during the Civil War (see This Republic of Suffering for more detail) - also informs the Gettysburg Address. Cemeteries such as Mt. Auburn in Cambridge served a moral and instructive role and Gettysburg National Cemetery would fit into that continiuum.

For Lincoln, of course, that lesson is "the new birth of freedom" passed down to us from the Declaration of Indpendence. Lincoln saw the Declaration as the nation's true founding document,as opposed to the Constitution, as it holds the promise of equality for all in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He also sees that through the revolution and joint declaration of independence the states are bound as a union, not as a simple agreement among autonomous states. This informs the way in which Lincoln pursues the war treating the Southern states as insurrectionists within the union as opposed to a foreign power and only resorting to emancipation where it is a military necessity since he believes it cannot be done by unilateral decree. The Gettysburg Address has resulted in many if not most Americans viewing the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Union the way that Lincoln did:
"...the professors, the textbooks, the politicians, the press have overwhelmingly accepted Lincoln's vision. The Gettysburg Address has become an authoritative expression of the American spirit -- as authoritative as the Declaration itself, and perhaps even more influential, since it determines how we read the Declaration. For most people now, the Declaration means what Lincoln told us it means, as a way of correcting the Constitution itself without overthrowing it. It is this correction of the spirit, this intellectual revolution, that makes attempts to go back beyond Lincoln so feckless. The proponents of states' rights may have arguments, but they have lost their force, in courts as well as in the popular mind. By accepting the Gettysburg Address, its concept of a single people dedicated to a proposition, we have been changed. Because of it, we live in a different America." - p. 146-47
The final chapter analyzes Lincoln's oratorial style, its brevity, rhythmns, and lack of flowery language and tropes common to speech writing of the time (see Everett's speech in the appendices for a contrasting example). Writes Wills, "Hemingway claimed that all modern American novels are the offspring of Huckleberry Finn. It is no greater exaggeration to say that all modern political prose descends from the Gettysburg Address," (p. 148). In fact Wills contends that Lincoln prefigured "soundbite politics" by more than a century by crafting his words to meet the needs of the new technology of the telegraph. Perhaps the satirical Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation is more on the mark than its creators intended.

This shorts but incisive book concludes with appendices that include research on the actual text that Lincol delivered that day. There are multiple drafts and the newspaper accounts of the day are not all in agreement. The Library of Congress has a good online exhibit of the many drafts of the address, as well as the only picture of Lincoln of that day. There are also the full text of Everett's oration and two ancient Greek forebearers (I confess I skipped these). Finally, there's a little detective work on where Lincoln actually stood to deliver the Gettysburg Address. All and all, a fascinating a rewarding read for Lincoln Day '09! ( )