From 1861 to 1865, the United State was at war with itself. It was the American Civil War, fought on its own soil. At the beginning of the war, thirty-four states comprised the United States, with two more added by the war's end.
Three key issues were at the heart of start of the war: slavery, states' rights, and westward expansion. With tensions between northern and southern states increasing, the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, who was openly anti-slavery, caused seven southern states to secede from the union (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas). That number increased by four (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia) after the battle at Fort Sumter, the war's start. The eleven states were known as the Confederate States of America. The War Between the States, as it was known, not only pitted militias from states against one another, but also, literally, brother against brother. Nearly one-quarter of all those who fought in the war died.
At what would eventually become the midpoint of the war, a special dedication ceremony took place. The Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania -- a cemetery for Union soldiers, that even has monuments to both Union and Confederate soldiers -- was dedicated on November 19, 1863, roughly four-and-a-half months after the Union victory at the battle of Gettysburg.
The main speaker at the cemetery's dedication was Edward Everett, a former Secretary of State as well as former Massachusetts Governor, Representative, and Senator, among many other notable accomplishments. His speech, in terms of time, eclipsed Lincoln's remarks. Everett spoke first, for two hours; Lincoln spoke second, for just three minutes. In terms of remembrance and broadest importance, however, the 272 words Lincoln spoke have eclipsed Everett's lengthy oratory for a century-and-a-half.
His words spoke of the young nation's history to the testing of its mettle with the war; to honoring the war dead to what their sacrifice meant; to the continuing work of a greater good to the perseverance of a nation. It has been noted that Lincoln may have been interrupted as much as five times in his three minute commentary.
No words I have can match those of Mr. Lincoln. There are several versions of the text, but the words below are those that are most often cited and which appear on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.:
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.
His words signal the cost of liberty and how high that cost can be; they remind us of the sacrifices made in the name of establishing this country...and, for us in 2013, how such conflict must never come to pass again.
Mr. Lincoln, we still remember and still note with reverence your words for this nation, seven-and-a-half score later.
Terry
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