Gettysburg Address

[Eva Elisabeth]

Since democracy origins in ancient Greece, and "dêmos" ="people" and "krátos" = "power" I wonder if a similar wording had already occurred in any Greek writing (Aristoteles e.g.).

[maharba]

I think that in the past many-score years, well intentioned educators and the press wanted to make simplistic hero's out of Lincoln and other historical figures. But the result often when it resonated into the ears and mind of a child, it came across as almost cartoonish ("When I was your age, why I walked a dozen miles to school, uphill each way"). Lincoln was not a cardboard cutout, unable to predict and plan, merely acting spontaneously. His lifelong habit of noting interesting articles in newspaper and journals, trying out various turns of speech, and saving those away for the proper occasion show that Lincoln planned long and well.

Again, trying to break back the validity of the Wycliffe Bible claim, several folks insist that phrase is simply not there (of the people, etc), but that the claim has been copied and recopied over and over. And I have noticed in the past, that some researchers became heated in their citation of Daniel Webster 1830, and also another speech by Rev. Theodore Parker at an 1850 Boston antislavery rally (the phrase of, by, for the people). What Lincoln might have missed hearing or reading, men like Seward would have known. And I think even the Gettysburg Address was vetted and edited a bit by Seward and others.

Your reference to the French Revolution language was interesting. Jefferson was reviled by the Federalists for supposedly too close an affection for the French. It is almost a wonder that Jefferson did not insert Liberty, Equality, Fraternity into some of the founding documents he formulated.

[Eva Elisabeth]

"When I was your age, why I walked a dozen miles to school, uphill each way" - is this what you are thinking of?
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

All joking aside, wherever some words came from, and whatever well intentioned educators and the press wanted to make out of Lincoln - the way Lincoln put the ingredients together to compose his own message and conclusion to me is simply intriguing, moving, clear, powerful, and unique, an effect which the sources of the few borrowings do not show on me (and I haven't had such educators - and heroes occurred only in ancient mythology -, thus have come to find this on my very own).

He put together and said the right words at the right time, whether from the Bible or former ideas (and it doesn't always make sense to frantically seek to reinvent the wheel or re-word it) - I don't doubt they 100% represented what he felt.

[maharba]

Contrasting the early 1838 Lyceum Speech of Lincoln to Galusha Grow's 1861 acceptance speech as Speaker of the House. To me, the opening of Representative G. A. Grow's speech has the nearly identical of Lincoln's 1863 Gettysburg Address. I am sure Lincoln patterned the Gettysburg
Address after Speaker Grow's speech. But just as Speaker Grow's speech ran on far too long and became convoluted, so to me did Abraham Lincoln in his earlier 1838 Lyceum Speech (as a young man). Grow's speech fell to ranting on about floating gore and blood. While Lincoln in the Lyceum Speech seemed to be a young man letting himself run on, to distraction here and there. Napoleon, Caesar and more does Lincoln recall in his Speech. There is one thing quite odd about the Lyceum Speech, and one word Lincoln never uses there. Anyone else notice a notable word that Lincoln entirely omitted from the Lyceum Address?

[RJNorton]

I am not sure what you are referring to, but I shall guess. Lovejoy?

[maharba]

Comparing Gettysburg with the Lyceum Speech, he was much longer and more strident in the 1838 speech. But Lincoln never used the word UNION there, which strikes me as a bit unexpected.

[Gene C]

Well, he was only 29 at the time of the Lyceum speech

[Eva Elisabeth]

Honestly it doesn't strike me. Or had referring to the United States as Union been common already before the CW?

[maharba]

It was universally known that Massachusetts and other states had threatened to and might indeed Secede to form a new Confederacy at any time, which would dissolve the Union. Neither Lincoln nor any one else had ever taken exception with their rights to secede. And Texas had already seceded from Mexico, which Lincoln had endorsed. He had already seen the 1832 BlackHawk War, and now minimized or negated any major war threat from American Indians by his speech.
Maybe his relatively conflict-free outing in the War falsely convinced him of the present and future negligible capacities of Indian Tribes. So there was some history past and more to come (the Mexican War), which would affect Lincoln's political future. Maybe, all that had much to do with Lincoln's omission in the Lyceum speech of the Union?

[Rob Wick]

Or had referring to the United States as Union been common already before the CW?

Here is one man's opinion in 1817. If you go to page four in this book, you will find an interpretation of that opinion.

Best
Rob

[Eva Elisabeth]

THANK YOU, Rob. I've tried to find but draw a blank. Thanks also for the book link, looks interesting at all!
So if the term was not in public mind, not commonly coined before the CW, and Abraham Lincoln probably did not get got to read the 1817 article, how can one speak of "omission"? (Has a bit of a negative undertone which I would find inappropriate.)

[L Verge]

What Rob has offered us should be read in its entirety because it gives you plenty of food for thought on just what Union meant from the earliest days of the Revolution through the antebellum era. I particularly liked pages 14-19 and the changing thoughts of our Founding Fathers.

The Articles of Confederation did little to give the concept of Union legs to walk on. Our emerging political systems, economic ventures, etc. stressed Union - and then drew back as individual states (and smaller units) saw the concept threatening territorial issues. Manifest Destiny was certainly a belief that should inspire a united country to work together to move constantly forward, and yet, that Union faltered when slavery and abolitionism entered the equation.

It could be that Lincoln omitted the word "Union" on purpose, but I suspect that his short-term experience in the political world at the time he gave the Lyceum talk at age 29 may have given him no real basis on which to preach the ideals of Unionism. Maybe he just didn't think to use the word? Maybe he knew that the concept looked good on paper, but only really meant anything to the American people when a crisis came along? Unfortunately, it is now almost 200 years later, and many Americans only want a solid Union when it benefits them via security or money... but, I digress.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Maybe he just didn't think to use the word?

That's what I would think! The speech was entitled "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions". Perhaps the Union as a basis was also just too self-evident and enclosed in the "Our". Likewise you can ask why no other orators/politicians in those days had made it a topic (since the one in 1815).

[maharba]

Continuing the Gettysburg Address line by line,
"our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation"

I think it would have sounded better "our forefathers". If he intended it to mean our 'fathers' as in participant founders with a part in the secession from england, then the fathers of President Davis and General Lee certainly qualified. But not Lincoln's father. At school recitals I have often heard kids to say "our forefathers", and it seems a more natural fit to me, anyway.

The "upon this continent" phrasing seems clunky and almost legalistic. I think he was lifting terms from the 1861 Galusha Grow speech, and so he kept in that 'continent' reference. But "a new nation" was not created, then. As again, from Grow's speech, "a new empire". 'On these shores' would certainly have been more poetic, and less derivative back to Speaker Grow's vision.

[L Verge]

And for all these years, I have considered the Gettysburg Address a beautiful piece of writing that could bring tears to my eyes at certain occasions. I'm not sure that I'm going to like this ongoing critique and analysis of its construction.