LM#40--The Behind-the-Scenes Journey of the Gettysburg Address

Listen, those are the drums of liberty. 160 years ago today, November 19th, our 16th President of the United States gave one of the most important speeches in all of American history. Let's talk about it on this Liberty Minute.

Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, David Kaiser.

Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Liberty Minute. Today we are going to dive into one of the most iconic speeches in all of American history, the Gettysburg Address. Delivered on today 160 years ago November 19th 1863, happened in South Central Pennsylvania at the dedication of a National Cemetery outside the Battle of Gettysburg. Now if you don't know what happened at Gettysburg in the US Civil War, be sure to go back to our three-part series back in July. We'll put links in the show notes to make it easy for you. We did a deep dive into that three-day battle. Now most Americans have heard the poignant words of the Gettysburg Address, but evidently the US Civil War, nor some of the greatest speeches in American history, are no longer studied or taught in at least public schools. From what I hear Now, I know there's an explosion in homeschooling and in charter schools, who want to move back towards a more classical education because, frankly, the failure of public schools over the last 25 years has been staggering. I can understand that. I'm a product of public schooling, graduating the late 19 or the early 1990s, rather so. I understand it, I get it. My real education took place once I went to college, where we did study the US Civil War. Thank you, dr Pell Tier, thank you Dr Wilson, two very good professors and where we did read the great speeches in American history. So to help us as our guide today is Gary Wills, who wrote a very insightful book which will help us along our journey together, titled Lincoln at Gettysburg the words that remade America. It was written in 1992. The first nugget of wisdom we can learn from the book, which destroys the notion that Lincoln very quickly wrote the speech on the back of an envelope while en route to the event the truth is Lincoln didn't have many public speaking opportunities in his short presidency. Unlike presidents nowadays who are invited to many events and gatherings around the country, lincoln did not, nor was it custom at the time, in the mid 19th century, to have such occasions. So when Lincoln was invited, he cherished this opportunity, as the invitation invited him to make a few appropriate remarks. There was going to be a major speaker that day that would carry the bulk of the words, the bulk of the dedication. That gentleman's name was Edward Edward. Now, lincoln did not hastily write the speech on the back of an envelope. In fact, he had planned it out for many weeks. To dive into that insight. Let's go to the book. For a man so determined to get there and so ready to invite others to attend, lincoln seems, in familiar accounts, rather cavalier about preparing what he would say in Gettysburg. The silly but persistent myth is that he jotted his brief remarks down on the back of an envelope. Other attested accounts have him considering it on the way to a photographer's shop in Washington, writing it on the back of a piece of cardboard as the train took him on the 80 mile trip, penciling it perhaps in David Wills's house the night before the dedication, or writing it in that house on the morning of the day he had to deliver it, or even composing it in his head as Everett spoke before Lincoln rose to follow him. These reflections, recorded at various times after the speech was delivered and one fame, reflect two concerns on the part of those expressing them. They reveal an understandable pride in participation at the historic occasion. It was not enough for those who treasured their day at Gettysburg to have heard Lincoln speak, a privilege they shared with anywhere from 10 to 20 thousand other people, an experience that lasted no more than three minutes. They wanted to be intimate with the gestation of that extraordinary speech, watching the pen or pencil move under the inspiration of the moment. That is the other emphasis in these accounts that it was a product of the moment struck off as Lincoln moved under destiny's guidance. Inspiration was shed on him in the presence of others. The contrast with Everett's long labors of preparation is almost implied. Research, learning, the student's lamp none of these were needed by Lincoln, whose unsummoned muse was prompting him, a democratic muse, unacquainted with the library. Lightning struck and each of our informants was there when it struck. You can sense a little sarcasm in Will's writing, and rightly so. Further down the page, we learn from Lincoln's contemporaries. This is even more important. It's the people that lived with him, the people that worked around him and worked with him. This was not Lincoln's way of doing things, to just haphazardly jot something down on the back of a piece of cardboard. Let's continue from the book. The trouble with these accounts is that the lightning strikes too often, as if it could not get the work done on its first attempt. It hits Lincoln on the train, in his room, at night, in the morning. If the persistent inspiration was treating him this way, he should have been short-circuited, not inspired, by the time he spoke. These mythical accounts are badly out of character for Lincoln, who composed his speeches thoughtfully. His law partner, william Herden, observing Lincoln's careful preparation of cases, records that he was a slow writer who liked to sort out his points and tighten his logic in his phrasing. That is the process vouched for in every other case of Lincoln's memorable public statements. It is impossible to imagine him leaving his speech at Gettysburg. He knew he would be busy on the train and at the site. Important political guests were with him from his departure and Moore joined him at the transfer at Baltimore, full of talk about the war, elections and policy. In Gettysburg he would have been entertained at David Wills's house with Everett and other important guests. State delegations would want a word with him. He had hoped for a quick tour of the battle site, a hope that was fulfilled early that day on the 19th. Before the speech he could not count on any time for concentration he required when weighing his words. Now that sounds much closer to the truth, doesn't it? Just one more quote about this myth and then we'll move on to the speech itself. A more reliable indication of Lincoln's preparation in Washington is provided by his consultation with the Cemetery's landscaper. The President knew, presumably from talks with LeMond that William Sanders of the Agricultural Department had conceived the grounds plans and he had called Sanders to the Executive Mansion, nowadays called the White House. A few days before the dedication of the grounds, president Lincoln sent word to me that he desired to call me at his office on the evening of the 17th, a Tuesday, and take with me the plan of the cemetery. I was on hand at the appointed time and spread the plan out in his office table. He took my chest interest in it. He asked about its surroundings in Culp's Hill and Roundtop etc. And he seemed familiar with the topography of the place although he had never been there. He was much pleased with the method of the graves. Sidid differed from the ordinary cemetery and after I had explained the reasons, sidid was advisable in benefiting arrangement. Lincoln no doubt retained some knowledge of the battleplaces from the following reports during and after the three days of fighting there. Lemond too may have sketched the general scene as part of his quote advancing preparations over several weeks. Lincoln's desire to have specific knowledge of the cemetery's features proves that he was not relying solely on the lightning stroke of genius to tell him what to say when he arrived on the spot. So we can put that myth to bed about Lincoln writing the speech on the train to the event. Now let's turn to the actual speech itself. In fact, wills calls this speech a quote intellectual revolution and says in order to penetrate the mystery of Lincoln's Re-Founding Act, we must study all the elements of that stunning verbal cue. Let's do just that First. Let's do it by hearing the actual words that were spoken on that day at the Gettysburg Cemetery in 1863. For score in 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 battlefield 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hollow 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. For it is, for it is 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 hear, highly resolved 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. Wow, I get chills every time I read it. So simple, so direct, so effective of a speech. Many at the time who attended the speech did not understand the depth that their president had spoken, nor its breath. Only after the words were printed in newspapers and passed around Congress did the full effect of Lincoln's words be fully comprehended by his contemporaries. And this is the revolutionary point that Will's is makes. Let's go back to the book to grab his point. The Gettysburg address has become an authoritative expression of the American spirit as authoritative as the declaration itself and perhaps even more influential, since it determines how we read the declaration. For most people now, the declaration means what Lincoln told us. It means as a way of correcting the Constitution itself without overthrowing it. It is this correction of the spirit, this intellectual revolution, that makes attempts to go back beyond Lincoln to some earlier version so feckless. The proponents of states' rights may have arguments, but they have lost their force in courts as well as in the popular mind. By accepting the Gettysburg address, its concept of a single people dedicated to a proposition, no-transcript, we have been changed Because of it. We live in a different America, different American Deed. Now, from the Great American History book by Wilford McClay, the Land of Hope and Invitations to the Great American Story, we learn four vital points from the Gettysburg Addressed and in keeping with our Socratic style, I believe these four questions, followed by their four well thought answers, can be very effective for us to consider. Let's go these questions from again, wilford McClay's book, the Land of Hope an invitation to the Great American Story. Our first question why does Lincoln begin his speech with the archaic numbering for score in seven years, rather than saying in 1776. He's invoking the language of the Bible, a way of underscoring the sacredness of the moment and giving the American story a mythic dimension by lifting it out of the flow of mere history. It is all a part of the speech's effort to emphasize the very high stakes in the outcome of the Civil War. Our second question in what way is the Civil War, a quote testing? It's a testing the durability of the ideals that undergirded the American founding. Lincoln strongly suggests that the future of these ideas, not just for America but for the world, is riding on the war's outcome. The war is testing not only whether the American nation can endure but whether quote any nation so conceived and so dedicated can. Our third question why does Lincoln insist on I'm sorry, why does Lincoln insist that quote we cannot dedicate, consecrate or hallow this ground? He wishes to give the fullest possible credit to the soldiers who died for the Union. It is an illustration of Lincoln's democratic impulses to say that these individuals do not need the authority of the government to pronounce upon the nobility of their deed. He also wishes to intensify the sense of obligation and proclaim that we best honor the dead by making sure that the quote great task they began is finished. And finally, what is the great task? Here is one of the interesting ambiguities in the speech. Lincoln, of course, means the winning of the war and the reunification of the country, but he also means more. Part of what is meant by ensuring that the dead did not die in vain is that the nation needs to experience a new birth of freedom which surely refers to the abolition of slavery as well as rededicate itself to the idea of democracy itself as a government of the people, by the people and for the people. In other words, the nature of the task has changed since the beginning of the war. So in today's Liberty Minute, let us continue to study our American history and especially our great speeches, like the Gettysburg Address. It helps to tell us our own family story. It helps to provide us with a perspective that many people have given this country their last full measure of devotion, and we, the living, would do well to understand, to quote from Lincoln, we would do well to understand that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that new birth of freedom is precious. Let us be humbled by those thoughts as we try to live up to those standards of our forefathers.

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