Sparks Commentary: The Gettysburg Address explained

If you feel like you don’t understand the Gettysburg Address, this post is for you.

What the heck does “Fourscore and seven years ago” mean?

When people think of the Gettysburg Address, the first thing they think of is the opening phrase: “Fourscore and seven years ago.” Most people don’t even know what a “score” is, so perhaps I should define it for my readers. A “score,” in this context, is an older way of saying “twenty.” Thus, “Fourscore” is four times twenty (which is eighty), and “Fourscore and seven” would be eighty-seven. Lincoln was giving this speech in 1863. If you do the math, 1863 minus 87 gives you the year 1776 – the birth year of this country.

Sketch of Abraham Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address

It refers to the founding of America in 1776

In America, 1776 is a symbolic year. Thus, it is significant that Abraham Lincoln referred to it with this phrase. In this year, we declared our independence from Great Britain. And Lincoln is obviously correct when he said that the Declaration of Independence “brought forth on this continent a new nation.” But the most famous part of the Declaration of Independence is found in the stirring words of its opening few paragraphs. Specifically, it said that “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (Source: The Declaration of Independence, 1776) The most relevant part of that sentence is that “all men are created equal,” a much-debated phrase during the Civil War era. Thus, Lincoln would make reference to that phrase in the opening sentence of the Gettysburg Address.

John Trumbull’s “Declaration of Independence”

The era’s controversies over the phrase “all men are created equal”

Earlier in his career, Lincoln had said that “As a nation we began by declaring ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it, ‘all men are created equal, except Negroes.’ [his word, not mine] … It will [soon] read ‘all men are created equal, except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ [same disclaimer] When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for example, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” (Source: Letter to Joshua F. Speed, 24 August 1855) Obviously, Lincoln found these exceptions to be a “base alloy of hypocrisy,” as this quotation shows. In the Gettysburg Address, he was thus calling for these exceptions to be (at least partially) removed, if not fully removed. He was calling for the nation to more consistently declare that “all men are created equal.”

Abraham Lincoln, a couple of years after he wrote these words about “hypocrisy”

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war”

Thus, returning to the language of Lincoln’s stirring opening sentence: “Fourscore 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,” Lincoln continues, “we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.” Is our nation going to withstand the test of this “civil war,” Lincoln thus asks (at least rhetorically), or is it going to fall apart and split into two nations – a Union and a Confederacy? Lincoln wants his audience to prevent this danger from being realized, by supporting the North’s prosecution of the Civil War, and bringing that war to a successful conclusion.

Abraham Lincoln, some three hours before he delivered the Gettysburg Address

Lincoln refers to the location of his speech: Gettysburg

Now, Lincoln refers to the setting in which he is giving this speech: Gettysburg. Only four months before, Northern and Southern armies had duked it out here in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. “We are met on a great battlefield of that war,” said Lincoln. “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,” he says.

A painting of the Battle of Gettysburg (1863)

Lincoln refers to the sacrifices of those who fought and died in this terrible battle …

“But in a larger sense,” Lincoln then continues, “we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.” In that one battle, the North had seen 3,000 of its soldiers die in combat. An additional 14,000 Northern soldiers were wounded from it, and more than 5,000 Northern soldiers were captured or missing in that battle. (see source) Thus, “The brave men, living and dead who struggled here” were the ones who had made this battlefield into “hallow[ed] … ground.”

The Northern war dead at Gettysburg (1863)

… and says that we can “never forget” what the soldiers did here

Lincoln then says (somewhat ironically) that “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here.” The nation has always remembered this Gettysburg Address very well, so this is the one part of his prediction that was inaccurate (perhaps because of Lincoln’s commendable modesty). Nonetheless, Lincoln says, this nation “can never forget what they [meaning the soldiers] did here.” Again, many of these soldiers had made the ultimate sacrifice in this terrible battle.

Graves at the Gettysburg National Cemetery

Lincoln then gets to the real point of the speech …

Lincoln then gets to the real point of his speech: “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” – namely, that of winning the war.

The only photograph of Lincoln at the time of the address, taken right after he had finished it

… saying that to make those sacrifices good, we have to win the war against the South

In Lincoln’s words: “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.” Words more stirring have never been spoken. The “new birth of freedom” part was a reference to ending chattel slavery, and freeing four million Americans from bondage. Although Lincoln had earlier distanced himself from the goal of emancipation, he was now making this “new birth of freedom” into a primary Northern war aim – the biggest reason that the North was continuing to fight this bloody war, and sacrifice still more of its soldiers in this ongoing (and seemingly endless) combat.

African American soldiers fighting in the Civil War

If Lincoln felt that he couldn’t do this topic justice, then I certainly can’t …

I have been interrupting my rehashing of this speech with some frequent commentary. This is because the language of the speech is old enough that many people today find it a little inaccessible. But if you understand the language of the speech, I personally believe that the Gettysburg Address speaks for itself, and I cannot possibly do it justice with my commentaries. This speech has been covered so often and so well that I can add very little, even less than Lincoln could do when commenting on the then-recent carnage at Gettysburg. Indeed, “The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.” As Lincoln says, though, “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.”

The last photograph of Abraham Lincoln, taken shortly before his assassination in 1865

… but some comments are still needed about this “new birth of freedom” …

And to me, that is the real point of this speech. That is why it still remains famous. And that is why the “new birth of freedom” will always remain relevant. As long as nations are imperfect, it will remain an “unfinished work,” requiring constantly-renewed protections for the “new birth of freedom.” This was protected during World War II, when Americans died to save their country from overseas threats to their liberties.

American dead at Omaha Beach – Normandy, France (1944), during World War II

This speech deserves to be remembered

The “new birth of freedom” is why we continue to return to this speech for guidance and inspiration. It reminds us of how much the Civil War generation (and other generations) have sacrificed to keep this nation free. It is quoted on many a gravestone (including that of one of my ancestors), and commemorated on many a Memorial Day. But it needs to be remembered throughout the year, in war and in peace, for as long as human beings walk this earth.

See the full and uninterrupted text of this speech at Yale Law School’s “Avalon Project.”

See Ken Burns’ video of the Gettysburg Address here