Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is one of the most famous speeches by the 16th US President Abraham Lincoln . He held it on November 19, 1863 on the occasion of the inauguration of the military cemetery on the battlefield of Gettysburg and summarized in it the democratic self-image of the United States. The speech is widely regarded as a rhetorical masterpiece and is part of the US historical and cultural heritage.
occasion
From July 1st to 3rd, 1863, the decisive battle of the American Civil War took place near the town of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania . More than 30,000 soldiers from the northern and southern states were killed or wounded in it. On November 19, 1863, in the middle of the ongoing civil war, a military cemetery was inaugurated on the battlefield for around 7,000 dead. The keynote speaker at the ceremony was diplomat Edward Everett , who gave an approximately two-hour speech that has now largely been forgotten. President Lincoln would then say a few words of greeting as the guest of honor. In this address, which lasted only two and a half minutes, Lincoln presented the reasons for the conflict in a very concise and precise manner: it had to show whether a “government of the people by the people and for the people” could last. This was not a matter of course at a time when a large, democratically constituted state like the USA was still a great exception in world history.
text
The exact wording of the Gettysburg Address is not certain, as the speech has come down to us in different, slightly different versions. Lincoln himself made five copies of it, which were later named after their respective recipients: after the two secretaries to the President, John Hay and John George Nicolay , after the previous speaker Everett, after the historian George Bancroft and after Colonel Alexander Bliss. There are also versions that were stenographed by the journalists present. The most reliable and authentic source, which is likely to come closest to the original wording, is the “Bliss version” reproduced below, because it was the only one signed by Lincoln.
“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. "
The German translation is:
“87 years ago our fathers founded a new nation on this continent, begotten in freedom and consecrated to the principle that all human beings are created equal.
We are now in a great civil war, which is a test of whether this or any other nation so created and consecrated to such principles can endure permanently. We are gathered on a great battlefield of this war. We have come to dedicate part of this field as the final resting place of those who gave their lives here, that this nation might live. It is only right that we do so.
But in a wider sense we cannot consecrate this ground, we cannot bless it, we cannot sanctify it. The brave men, living and dead, who fought here have consecrated it far more than our weak strengths could add to or subtract from it. The world will take little notice of it, will long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. Rather, it is up to us, the living, to be consecrated here to the unfinished work that those who fought here have carried forward so far and so generously. Rather, it is up to us to be dedicated to the great task that still lies ahead of us - so that the noble dead may fill us with growing devotion for the cause to which they have shown the highest degree of devotion - that we may make a solemn decision here that these dead should not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, should experience a rebirth of freedom - and that the government of the people, by the people and for the people, should not disappear from the earth. "
Admission to the contemporaries
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The immediate reactions to the Gettysburg Address were rather critical. The applause from the audience was muted, and Lincoln himself had the impression that the speech had failed because of its brevity. When he sat down after the address, he is reported to have said to his friend and bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, who was sitting next to him: "Lamon, this speech will not go through." The expression "not go through" was used by prairie farmers for clay-encrusted plows, that no longer break the ground.
The press was divided along party-political loyalties. An editor of the Chicago Times that the Democrats was close to, wrote: "It is driven every American blush when he foolish the banal and aqueous statements reads the man, the wise foreigners must be presented as President of the United States." The "Harrisburg Patriot-News" made a similar statement at the time. 150 years later, the paper apologized for dismissing Lincoln's speech at the time as "stupid chatter".
Lincoln's previous speaker Edward Everett, on the other hand, anticipated the positive assessment that Lincoln's address would find with posterity: “Dear Mr. President! I wish I could flatter myself that I got the point in two hours as succinctly as you did in two minutes. ”After Lincoln's assassination in the spring of 1865, his political companion Charles Sumner , Senator from Massachusetts, wrote: in a memory book:
“This speech, given on the Gettysburg battlefield and now sanctified by the martyrdom of its author, is a monumental act. In his humble way he said, 'The world will take little notice, long remember what we are saying, but it can never forget what they did.' He was wrong. The world immediately took notice of what he said and it will never forget it. The battle itself wasn't as important as the speech. Ideas always mean more than battles. "
Long-term impact and importance
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What Everett and Sumner saw was that Lincoln's speech summed up the American understanding of democracy. Many US citizens identify with this understanding of democracy to this day. The speech is an integral part of history lessons in American schools and generations of students have memorized it. Like the Declaration of Independence , whose promise of freedom and equality Lincoln repeated in the first sentence of his speech, it forms an integral part of the collective historical memory of the people of the United States.
The wording of the Gettysburg Address is carved into the south wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC , and US politicians repeatedly quote it directly or indirectly, for example John F. Kennedy in 1963 on the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. On August 28 of the same year, at the end of a large-scale demonstration in Washington , Martin Luther King gave his famous speech I have a dream on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. After an introductory sentence he said:
"Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.
It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. "
The German translation is roughly:
“A hundred years ago a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we are today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation [which abolished slavery]. This important decree came as a great beacon of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had withered in the flames of parched injustice. It came as a joyful dawn to end the long night of their captivity.
But 100 years later the negro is still not free. "
Outside the US, too, reference is made to the Gettysburg Address, in particular to Lincoln's definition of the democratic form of government as “government of the people, by the people and for the people”. A corresponding formulation - “Everything for the people. Everything through the people ”- can be found in Philipp Scheidemann's speech on the proclamation of the republic in Germany on November 9, 1918. The constitution of the Fifth French Republic of 1958 literally takes up Lincoln's formulation when it comes from the gouvernement du peuple, par le peuple et pour le peuple speaks.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Boritt, Gabor. The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows. , Appendix B p. 290: “This is the only copy that… Lincoln dignified with a title: 'Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.', A rare full signature, and the date: 'November 19, 1863'… This final draft, generally considered the standard text, remained in the Bliss family until 1949. ”
- ↑ pennlive.com (English)
- ^ Text passage from: Kenneth Lauren Burns, The American Civil War, episode: The Rebirth of Freedom, 1989 documentary
- ^ A Memorial of Abraham Lincoln, Late President of the United States , ed. of Boston City Council, Boston 1865, p. 127
- ↑ Full text