The Gettysburg Address; Its Purpose & Basic Messages

Dec. 14, 2012 - PRLog -- In 270 words Abraham Lincoln delivered “a few appropriate remarks” on November 19th 1863 to dedicate the new cemetery and honor the fallen soldiers at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which would be called later in history the greatest speech in the English language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v_IWtiLv3w

In the days prior to November 19th, Secretary of State William Seward asked Mr. Lincoln to focus on the meaning of the Civil War. As it was the president knew he would speak in the broadest terms and try to give meaning to the War for all Americans.

“The past, the present, and the future”

Readers will later see for themselves that the address was divided this way, i.e. The first sentence makes one have to mathematically calculate backwards 87 years to 1776 when The Declaration of Independence was written dedicated to the “proposition” referring to the Euclid’s geometry, (a proposition has to be proven) specifically, “that all men are created equal”.

In the middle, the 8th sentence bridges from the present to the future with “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”

Now, for the future, “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the “unfinished work which they…..”

And finally in 82 words in one last sentence after honoring the dead and with words like a breath of fresh air, say “that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom”, (Many images will come to the mind whether you are a politician, leader or just a soldier. Then the worldwide statement that “government” (with no definite article preceding,) “of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

If he were alive today in the year 2012-2013 wouldn’t this be the right message for the people who live in the unstable countries in the Middle East?

Steve Edison

Founder

Abolition News Network

Gmail: americanslavehistory1865@gmail.com

For further study read: Boritt, Gabor, “The Gettysburg Gospel, The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows,” N.Y.C. Simon & Schuster, 2006.