In about two minutes and with 272 words, Abraham Lincoln delivered remarks in Gettysburg, Pa., that historians say resonate as much now as they did then.
Not many speeches, after all, merit a series of events to mark their 150th anniversary.
“It’s the best known, it’s the most memorized, it gets the most exposure of any American speech,” said Douglas Wilson, professor emeritus at the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill.
The address, delivered Nov. 19, 1863, at the dedication of a cemetery for soldiers killed in the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War, was not even the main event of the ceremony.
Former Massachusetts Gov. and U.S. Sen. Edward Everett, the day’s main speaker, spoke for two hours before Lincoln delivered the address, which begins “Four score and seven years ago …” and ends with the oft-repeated call that the “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
In Springfield, the city Lincoln called home, officials are marking the anniversary with a series of events, centering largely around the resources inside the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which houses one of five known copies of the Gettysburg Address handwritten by Lincoln.
At 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, a Lincoln impersonator will deliver the address in the plaza of the museum. An honor guard will watch over the document as visitors file past to see it. It will be on display for days later before it returns to the museum’s vault for safekeeping, officials said.
Last month, the museum began running recordings of children, veterans, couples and families reciting the address. A collection of 272-word essays written by such people as former President Jimmy Carter and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor are on display.
Lincoln scholars say it’s a well-earned ovation for an address that is one of the most important parts of Lincoln’s legacy. For one thing, its brevity and plain language make it as relevant and accessible in modern times as when it was first delivered, said Michael Burlingame, who has written biographies about Lincoln and is the chair of Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
After its 1863 delivery, many newspapers printed it, while organizers of memorial and funeral services in years immediately following quoted or recited it during ceremonies, said Martin Johnson, a history professor at Miami University of Ohio who wrote a book published this year about Lincoln called “Writing the Gettysburg Address.”
The address was also reprinted in publications — magazines and newspapers and separate pamphlets — many times during the war, he said.
“Those who admired it said that it brought together all the themes of war,” Johnson said. “It was repeated over and over.”
James Cornelius, curator of the Lincoln collection at the presidential library, said the most commonly asked questions he gets are related to the Gettysburg Address. Mostly, he said, it’s visitors asking about old copies of the address they found folded in elderly relatives’ Bibles or scrapbooks.
The papers are usually worth nothing, Cornelius said, but the questions and discoveries of reprints speak to “the ubiquity and importance” of the address.
The speech is partially what inspired Mickey Straub, who owns a sales management company and is now the mayor of Burr Ridge, to embark last year on a road trip in which he visited all 50 state capitols in 50 days, reciting the Gettysburg Address under the domes or on the steps at each one.
“The speech reminds (Americans) directly and indirectly about our founding principles,” said Straub, who recorded himself reciting the speech at many of the stops.
Beyond the power of the address, it’s also Lincoln’s sterling reputation that make his words sought after and admired, Johnson said.
“If you can attach your cause and your ideas and your policies to Lincoln, you’ve gained credibility and authority,” he said. “Lincoln stands as a kind of ultimate figure in American political life.”
So for those not familiar with the address on this anniversary? Just read it, historians say. It won’t take long.
“The anniversary itself is important because this is how nations create a sense of themselves,” Johnson said. “They celebrate their past. They remember key milestones and documents.”
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