Washington, DC, 1998.
Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
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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.
On the 19th November
, 1863.
Military, under command of Major-General
Couch
.
Major-General
Meade
and Staff, and the officers and soldiers of the Army of the Potomac.
Officers of the Navy and Marine Corps of the United States.
Aids.Chief Marshall
.
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Members of the Cabinet.
Assistant Secretaries of the Several Executive Departments.
General-in-Chief of the Army, and Staff.
Lieutenant-General
Scott
and Rear-Admiral
Stewart
.
Judges of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hon.
Edward Everett
, Orator of the day, and the Chaplain.
Governors of the States, and their Staffs.
Commissioners of the States on the Inauguration of the Cemetery.
Bearers with the Flags of the States.
Vice-President of the United States
and Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Members of the two Houses of Congress.
Officers of the two Houses of Congress.
Mayors of Cities.
Gettysburg Committee of Arrangements.
Officers and members of the United States Sanitary Commission.
Committees of Different Religious Bodies.
U. S. Military Telegraphic Corps.
Officers and Representatives of Adams Express Company.
Officers of different Telegraph Companies.
Hospital Corps of the Army.
Soldiers' Relief Associations.
Knights Templar.
Masonic Fraternity.
Independent Order of Odd-Fellows.
Other Benevolent Associations.
Literary, Scientific, and Industrial Associations.
The Press.
Officers and members of Loyal Leagues.
Fire Companies.
Citizens of the State of Pennsylvania.
Citizens of other States.
Citizens of the District of Columbia.
Citizens of the several Territories.
On the 19th of November
, 1863.
The military will form in Gettysburg at 9 o'clock a.m., on Carlisle street, north of the square, its right resting on the square, opposite McClellan's Hotel, under the direction of Major General Couch.
The State Marshals and Chief Marshal's aids will assemble in the public square at the same hour.
All civic bodies except the citizens of States will assemble, according to the foregoing printed programme, on York street at the same hour.
The delegation of Pennsylvania citizens will form on Chambersburg street, its right resting on the square, and the other citizen delegations, in their order, will form on the same street in rear of the Pennsylvania delegation.
The Marshals of the States are charged with the duty of forming their several delegations so that they will assume their appropriate positions when the main procession moves.
The head of the column will move at precisely 10 o'clock a. m.
The route will be up Baltimore street to the Emmittsburg road; thence to the junction of the Taneytown road; thence, by the latter road, to the Cemetery, where the military will form in line, as the General in command may order, for the purpose of saluting the President of the United States.
The military will then close up, and occupy the space on the left of the stand.
The civic procession will advance and occupy the area in front of the stand, the military leaving sufficient space between them and the line of graves for the civic procession to pass.
The ladies will occupy the right of the stand, and it is desirable that they be upon the ground as early as ten o'clock a.m.
The exercises will take place as soon as the military and civic bodies are in position, as follows:
Music. Prayer. Music.
Music.
Dirge. Benediction.
Oration.Dedicatory Remarks by the President of the United States.
After the benediction the procession will be dismissed, and the State Marshals and special aids to the Chief Marshal will form on Baltimore street, and return to the Court-house in Gettysburg, where a meeting of the marshals will be held.
An appropriate salute will be fired in Gettysburg on the day of the celebration, under the direction of Maj. Gen. Couch.
WARD H. LAMON,
Marshal-in-Chief
.
THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
was delivered at the dedication of the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863. In its final form it consists of 271 words. It can be read, slowly, in two minutes.
Lincoln's address was carefully prepared at least a week before the dedicatory ceremonies. It was not, as so many people believe, hastily scribbled on a scrap of paper while the President was on his way to Gettysburg.
There are five copies of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's handwriting. One was written in Washington well in advance of the event; another, a reading copy, was written at Gettysburg on the day of the ceremonies; three copies were made afterward for various purposes. The first two copies are now owned by the Library of Congress; the other three by the Illinois State Historical Library, Cornell University, and the Hon. Oscar B. Cintas of Havana, Cuba.
Lincoln was not the principal speaker at Gettysburg. The oration of the occasion was delivered by Edward Everett of Massachusetts, a clergyman, educator, and statesman who was considered the foremost orator of the day. Mr. Everett spoke for two hours. The ceremonies also included prayers and music.
There was applause when Lincoln rose to speak, and scattered applause, but no ovation, when he concluded. The audience had expected a longer address, and was caught by surprise at the brevity of the President's remarks.
Contrary to the prevailing belief, at least some critics recognized immediately the great literary merit of Lincoln's address. The most notable of these was Edward Everett, who wrote to Lincoln on the day after the dedication: “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in my two hours as you did in two minutes.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow characterized Lincoln's speech as “admirable,” and several of the most influential newspapers of the country praised it highly.
There were partisan newspapers, on the other hand, which described Lincoln's remarks as “silly,” “dull and commonplace,” and compounded of “political falsehoods.”
Everett and Longfellow, rather than the hostile critics, anticipated the judgment of posterity. That judgment has never been better expressed than by Lord Curzon, Chancellor of Oxford University, who ranked the Gettysburg Address as a “supreme masterpiece” of English eloquence. “Above all,” Lord Curzon asserted, the Gettysburg Address was “a declaration of America's fundamental principles. It truthfully represented the spirit of that for which men fought, not only at Gettysburg but at Runnymeade, at Bunker Hill, and on the plains of Flanders. The long, hard fought battle for the liberation of humanity has been a struggle for the rights and welfare of humanity.”
*
The text of the Gettysburg Address presented here is that of the fifth, or final, copy. Lincoln wrote this copy in March, 1864, at the request of George Bancroft, who reproduced it in a book entitled
Autograph Leaves of Our Country's Authors
. The original was written on one side of three sheets of blue-ruled paper, each sheet measuring 8 by 10 inches. The manuscript, now owned by the Hon. Oscar B. Cintas of Havana, Cuba, was exhibited with the four other drafts of the Gettysburg Address at the Chicago Historical Society, November 19 to 30, 1950.