Read complete books and articles on: Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg Address - speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln on Nov. 19, 1863, at the dedication of the national cemetery on the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa. It is one of the most famous and most quoted of modern speeches. The final version of the address prepared by Lincoln, differing in detail from the spoken address, reads:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on

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.

See A. Nevins, ed., Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address (1964); W. E. Barton, Lincoln at Gettysburg (1930, repr. 1971); G. Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1992).

Show Excerpt Only

6 of the Best Books and Articles on: Gettysburg Address

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address » Read Now
by Orton H. Carmichael. 116 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Address." Page 67. LINCOLNS GETTYSBURG ADDRESS BY ORTON H. CARMICHAEL...ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 90 LETTER...regarding the manuscripts of the Gettysburg...
2.

Gettysburg Address » Read Now
by Abraham Lincoln, Michael McCurdy. Multiple pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The words of President Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address are as relevant and meaningful today as they were in 1863. This magnificent book is a stunning exploration of some of the most powerful words ever spoken in American history.
3.

Abraham Lincoln: A Biography (Discussion of Gettysburg Address begins on p. 399) » Read Now
by Benjamin P. Thomas. 560 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...THE LINCOLN OF THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS Probably the handsomest...The Lincoln of the Gettysburg Address frontispiece...The procession to Gettysburg Cemetery 402...The Second...
4.

Abraham Lincoln, the Orator: Penetrating the Lincoln Legend (Chap. 6 "Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Immediate Failure and Lasting Success") » Read Now
by Lois J. Einhorn. 226 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Although much has been written about Abraham Lincoln, there has been little rhetorical analysis of how he communicated with his public. By studying Lincoln's rhetoric closely, we can gain real insights into Lincoln as an orator, debater, jester, lawyer, statesman, leader, and president. This...
Read More

Although much has been written about Abraham Lincoln, there has been little rhetorical analysis of how he communicated with his public. By studying Lincoln's rhetoric closely, we can gain real insights into Lincoln as an orator, debater, jester, lawyer, statesman, leader, and president. This critical appraisal of his public speaking is linked to transcripts of some major speeches and to a chronology, bibliography, and an index.
Show less
5.

Refiguring Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1832-1865, in American Literary History (Discussion of Gettysburg Address begins on p. 105) » Read Now
by Neil Schmitz. 16 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...E. Thurow s reading of the Gettysburg Address in Abraham Lincoln and American...In the first line of the Gettysburg Address, the famous double misprision...proposition."...
6.

Our Secret Constitution: How Lincoln Redefined American Democracy (Discussion of Gettysburg Address begins on p. 27) » Read Now
by George P. Fletcher. 292 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

In this perspective-altering new book, George P. Fletcher asserts that the Civil War was the most significant event in American legal history, an event that not only abolished slavery and changed the laws of the land but also created a new set of principles that continues to guide our thinking...
Read More

In this perspective-altering new book, George P. Fletcher asserts that the Civil War was the most significant event in American legal history, an event that not only abolished slavery and changed the laws of the land but also created a new set of principles that continues to guide our thinking today. Much as historians and lawmakers strive to maintain a continuity with the Constitution of 1787, Fletcher shows that the Civil War presented a rupture not only between North and South but between two visions of the United States. The first Constitution was based on the principles of peoplehood as a voluntary association, individual freedom, and republican elitism. The government chosen by "We the People" sought, above all, to protect the rights of individuals and to limit the leadership of the nation to a select few. It was a Constitution, moreover, that accommodated the most undemocratic institution imaginable: slavery. The second Constitution, forged on the killing fields of Vicksburg and Antietam, articulated in Lincoln's visionary Gettysburg Address, and enacted in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, reinvented the United States according to the principles of organic nationhood, equality of all persons, and popular democracy. Fletcher shows how these higher principles, though suppressed for decades, shape our sensibilities today in our efforts to expand the range of those protected as equal under the law, to promote equality in the workplace, to safeguard the interests of those who are at a competitive disadvantage, to rethink the limits of free speech and of religious liberty, and to amend the Constitution in the spirit of popular democracy. Written with passion, clarity, and sweeping historical knowledge, Our Secret Constitution will fundamentally change the way we view our past and bring new clarity to the issues we confront today.
Show less