A Lincoln sentence that especially resonates for me (as it does for commenter Richard Houston): "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."
I have a strong personal reason to think we still don't fully understand all that that unfinished work entails.
I was missing a huge component of it in 2005, when the Army announced its planned 2011 departure from Fort Monroe, Virginia, on the Chesapeake Bay sand spit Point Comfort, where the first captive Africans arrived in 1619.
The overall historic, prime-waterfront post at Fort Monroe is a longtime cherished public place. It contains a magnificent, moated stone citadel built by enslaved labor decades before the Civil War.
But even though in 2005 I knew plenty enough to begin publicly opposing Virginia's crass plans to overdevelop the post, and even though I had decades of family memories there, I had no idea that during the Civil war, enterprising slavery escapees had called Fort Monroe "Freedom's Fortress."
In fact in 1861, U.S. slavery that had begun in 1619 as colonial slavery on that sand spit began to crumble there. The movement that some historians call "self-emancipation" got its first big boost there--a boost that started with the self-agency, the brave initiative, of slavery escapees Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend. Those freedom strivers’ request for sanctuary started what Edward L. Ayers once called “the greatest moment in American history.”
Henry Louis Gates Jr. declared that moment “the beginning of the end of slavery.” For James M. McPherson, the phrase was “the story of the end of slavery in America.” Adam Goodheart, adapting from his "1861: The Civil War Awakening," explained the story in the New York Times Magazine article “How Slavery Really Ended in America.”
Across the land, many historians say, multitudes of slavery escapees figured centrally in transforming a war for union into a war for both union and freedom.
I think a big part of the work that President Lincoln called unfinished is for us to recognize and esteem what those multitudes of enterprising slavery escapees did. It's a story for a world where freedom and human dignity will always be imperiled. And it's a story for all sides in our history wars.
My free-to-subscribe Substack, "The Self-Emancipator," monitors and advocates the progress of that unfinished work.
Timeless? I'll tell you just how timeless - and limitless - the Gettysburg Address is, even if I have to go all the way back to 1989 to do it.
We were home-hosting an intern in my marketing company. He was a recent graduate of Beijing University ('Beida') and doing postgraduate work at Dominican College across the Golden Gate Bridge. Then, the Tienanmen Square Demonstrations led to the infamous Massacre. My wife, who performed refugee and immigration work for then-junior Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, was knee-deep helping Chinese Democracy Scholars process asylum applications, and we both led various assistive movements in San Francisco.
One day, Ken (his name both in Mandarin and English) suddenly burst out. "Fourscore and Seven Years ago...." and recited it from memory -- and obviously by heart, to the end. When he was an English major at Beida, one of the PRC's most prestigious schools, he had memorized numerous American documents, including the Constitution's preamble.
BTW, a year later, my wife's boss visited Beijing on a Congressional visit. Nancy visited Tienanmen Square to lay a wreath honoring the Martyrs; PRC cops hustled her and her wreath away and she nearly ended up in a PRC jail! In her case, perhaps, it was due to being born a few miles from Fort McHenry and graduating with a history degree.
In my penultimate federal job earlier that decade, President Reagan named a brilliant but reactionary Slav to head my agency - Office of the Special Counsel, the very one flouted by Trump's White House staff. He, too, could recite many documents from memory. He was another refugee.
Even if other foreigners (like Churchill, tho only half-British) snark that Americans do the right thing but only as the final alternative, our best political writers reached more than fellow Americans in the span of one century.
I wish I could see or be told what the Gettysburg sign protesting the CSA/ANV reenactors said. Not enough of that has been happening. Perhaps those reenactors should be encouraged to sign a loyalty oath? Perhaps even: the same loyalty oath required in 1865??! I understand there were several; the most appropriate today might be the one Rebel vets called “swallowing the dog”.
One of my friends was studying in Beijing in 1989 and saw the aftermath of the massacre of students at Tiananmen Square. He was struck by one protest sign he saw that began (in Mandarin) "When in the course of human events..."
Confederates don't belong in the Gettysburg parade.
At Gettysburg Lincoln memorably and transformatively argued the war was about democracy and equality. Cynics and libertarians attack the Gettysburg speech, arguing it falsely identifies the Union forces as the side fighting for "self-determination". They miss the point. Democracy and equality are much under attack these days. Let's hope Americans return to Lincoln's words as we seek to protect our freedoms and democratic way of life.
RE: Confederates. It was the large number of CSAs in the parade that stood out to me. It shows that this line from Lincoln’s speech still rings out quite loudly: “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.”
First, I agree with your concerns about Confederate participation in the ceremonies remembering the Gettysburg Address. I do not think it is appropriate.
Second, I think the Gettysburg Address has great importance for us today. It is one of a handful of documents that clearly and succinctly expresses our founding ideals and what, as a nation, we have struggled to achieve since at least 1775. These were radical ideas when Lincoln expressed them for the mid-19th century, not as radical as they perhaps were in the mid-18th century when first expressed by the founders but still radical. These are ideas that should still guide us.
This is well worth the read. When I led the Gettysburg Staff Ride at the Joint Forces Staff College, I always finished it at the Soldier’s Cemetery to discuss why the war was fought concluding with a reading of the Gettysburg Address. Sometimes, other visitors to the cemetery would join us. On one of those occasions, just prior to the election of Donald Trump, an older couple, he said that they were from Georgia joined us. When I finished the reading and my students contemplated it, the man came up to me and said, “I am glad that people are not created equal”. He then laughed in my face, turned and walked away. I was shocked, but then maybe I shouldn’t have been with all of the pro-Confederate merchandise in Gettysburg’s gift shops, including T-Shirts that said “I am not Reconstructed”. As you said, from the day that it entered Pennsylvania, Lee’s Army was out to capture and enslave Blacks, including free Blacks. To see Confederate re-enactors March through Gettysburg, almost like a conquering army bothers me.
Thanks for that sobering story. It calls to mind Professor Scott Hancock's video, embedded in the main "Civil War Memory" posting here, and showing him forthrightly contesting the counterfactual historical ugliness lobbed at him at Gettysburg.
What hits hard, "that all men are created equal," falls a bit differently in my heart now that when I was a child for sure. I used to believe that MEN really meant men, women, boys, girls; these days, that understanding seems in peril. The other phrase which hits hard is the "full measure of devotion" given by those who served. How devoted are today's politicians? How do they demonstrate they are devoted to country over party, to people over politics? *sigh*
I like the way that the historian Heather Cox Richardson handles the "all men" problem in her Substack. She simply ignores it. I guess she probably reasons that everybody understands how we nowadays think of that phase, so why bother stopping to engage it again?
By the way, I hope you're overstating your dread that "that understanding seems in peril," but I see what you mean.
FWIW, in Junior High in the early 70s I had to memorize The Gettysburg Address for history class. We also memorized the preambles to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They also took all of us to see Gone with the Wind, so we got a bit of a mixed message there. :)
I suspect part of the rationale was that GWTW is an important part of movie history. Besides, my teachers would have been taught the Dunning School "Reconstruction was a Failure" interpretation themselves, so that's what they passed on. They did NOT teach that secession was over "states rights", but that slavery was the root cause of the war, so there's that.
Only in the past few years have I read much scholarship about the devastating effect on Black civilians in the town, and the Confederate dependance on enslaved Blacks to provide logistical support to white confederates while being exposed without defense in the Battle.
I wonder where the free Black survivors were that day that Lincoln spoke? Had they recovered their places back in the town by then? Can you recommend a particular author who may have focused on the aftermath through the Fall?
When I saw this post, I dug out some of my files that I maintained as a teacher of some forty-two years. I used to "seminar" Lincoln's two inaugurals and the Gettysburg Address, the later of which is perhaps proof that the pen is mightier than the sword.
To me, the depth and power of the Gettysburg Address rests on our being a "propositional" nation. Our conception in liberty stressed the separation from the British Empire and a political independence, but liberty also came to mean the right of white people to own black people as chattel. White freedom often rested on black slavery. As Wilmore Kendall noted, Lincoln infused the Declaration of Independence with constitutional status; national power might hurdle constitutional restraints to spread equality. In effect, Lincoln altered the Constitution from within, by appeal from its letter to its spirit.
Various groups in our history have demanded an appeal to that spirit--rightly so--in order to live up to our stated creed. And, of course, the battle continues as various groups assert their rights. The Gettysburg Address serves as a living, real reminder of what we are to stand for as a nation.
I used to ask students the following questions:
Why do you think Lincoln mentioned neither the North nor the South in his speech. In addition, he mentioned no names at all. Why?
By giving the Address, did Lincoln betray the instrument he was on oath to defend?
Can you rewrite a charter of government--our Constitution--by the use of the spoken word?
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.
Two related themes : Racial Justice and Democracy (or the lack of) - We cannot have one without the other.
1) We needed a new birth of freedom due to the lack of freedom for enslaved people. We tried reconstruction which had some success but this was reversed by the undemocratic racist agenda of the southern democratic party. At times this involved violent overthrow of biracial Republican state and local government.
2)In recent times we see a similar attempt to overthrow democracy leading to January 6 and followed on ongoing attempts to disenfranchise and ignore democratic results. Some of this is based on white nationalism which is related to the "redeemer" movement to roll back Reconstruction. There is also a world-wide movement in this area.
Lincoln is telling is that we needed to have a second American revolution to complete the ideal presented in the Declaration of Independence since he Constitution did not fulfill this vision. This second revolution is a work in progress with two steps forward and at times steps back. We need to continue the work or we risk losing our democracy.
"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." I believe we are facing a clear indication that government "of the people, by the people, for the people.." is clearly in grave danger of perishing with the dominance of the so called MAGA movement in the Republican Party,
"Let us not forget that it is oratory, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it! Put it into the cold words of everyday! The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination — “that government of the people, by the people, for the people,” should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves." Mencken
Perhaps, but he was referring to the fact that it was the confederates fighting for independence,Not the federals LIncoln as you remember stated quite clearly he was fighting to "Save the Union" not free the slaves..Even the Emancipation Proclamation was only justified as "War"measure." Abe was a hard Core White Supremacist who wanted Blacks out of America. So you know his comments in the Gettysburg Address had nothing to do with emancipation. Unfortunately his actions brought about what Lee prognosticated
“The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.”
Again the "freedom" they were fighting for was the "freedom" to keep black people enslaved in perpetuity, seems like a skewed type of freedom, I do remember William F
Buckley saying if the people in the South want to keep segregation we should let them, of course he didn't seem to think blacks were people or at least worthy of a say in that fight.
Well of course in the abstract you can make that claim however it's fallacious reasoning. the average confederate soldier had their own reasons for fighting I'm sure some of them were fighting because they were attached to the institution of slavery. McPherson in his book why they fought went over the various reasons soldiers game. however if you're going to be honest instead of just using the tire brush you have to examine each States reason for succession. well I would certainly agree that the institution of slavery along with several other issues such as tariffs what is the primary reason the original seceding States of the Confederacy left the Union. of course we can all Quote the words of Alexander Stevenson on the subject. However the states is seceded after that did clearly over Lincoln's call for a militia to be formed to force the Confederacy back into the Union. That's precisely when all the rest of them seceded. In fact in their orders of secession none of them even mentioned the word slavery save Virginia. In Virginia's case it's simply says the suppression at the southern slave states obviously referring to the call for the militia.
As I am sure you're aware when the colonies left the United Kingdom they were granted their independence as separate Sovereign Nations. They then gathered together to form a union but none of them explicitly gave up the rights to secession. I know my great-grandfather and his brothers who fought in the 27th Virginia it was a simple matter that they were being invaded by Yankees .They're great grandparents had fought in a revolution for their independence they did not see this any differently. so I can just as easily argue that Union Soldiers fought the subjugate the Southern States and to destroy the principle of Jeffersonian democracy. however applying that to individual soldiers would be specious.
I couldn't care less what William Buckley said he's the quintessential Yankee although being Irish Catholic is a Different Twist. Believe me no population in the world is more anti-semitic than Irish Catholics.That's why you see so many of them cheering for Hamas. Segregation was bad but it happened after the Civil War so no Confederates,The noble Yankees wanted no part of black people coming up from the south at that time. all the Union States had absurdly vicious Sundown laws, Illinois was Chief among them.
When you burn down cities and employ a scorched Earth policy two states that had once been your partner you need a noble reason for it. and that's the noble cause myth of freeing the slaves was born about the same time as the Lost Cause myth. My mother's side had a few Confederate soldiers as well but they fought for probably different reasons than those in Virginia. first of all not all of them could fight because they were mixed race. when my Cajun ancestors came out of Canada they were already Meti. Their fathers and grandfathers more often than not had First Nation wives, Abenaki and Micmac. so they were a little melanin or Rich too marry with pure Frenchies. and so many of them married gen de color Libre. free people of color. One side of that family owns slaves which destroys the myth that all descendants of Africans were United against slavery like all human beings black folks actions revolve around their own self-interest. there was at least one line of mine who did serve in the Confederacy in some combat situations that was a man named Ephraim Sweat and his brothers.
Ephraimwas the descendant of William Sweat and indentured servant and a woman called Margaret Cornish who is in the dongle woman who arrived in Virginia in 1619 aboard the The English Privateer the White Lion. Margaret served a period of indentured servitude but was not a slave per se. don't know exactly what his motives were. don't let anyone tell you that there were no people of African descent in the Confederacy there was but they usually had to be pretty pale and only a few of them served any kind of capacity in combat. I'm a descendant of Ephraim's father Mulatto Bill Sweat. My point being that the labeling of all Confederate soldiers as being fighting for slavery Is rather sophistic.
there are many many reasons why someone would join an army as in in the case of the Civil War sides slavery; peer pressure, family pressure, join with friends, racial prejudice, local prejudice, but historians are almost universally in agreement that the political leaders of the Southern States and oligarchs pushed for secession for one singular rationale, the loss of political power of slavery, and that slavery needed consistent power to keep viable. Tariffs had long been on the back burner as they had been reduced substantially since the nullification fights and some Southern regions actually benefitted. Yes the Republicans were pro tariff and wanted to pass the Morrill tariff but they wouldn't have the votes till the Southern States seceded, no secession on Morrill tariff, son slavery no secession; as far as some blacks wanting to keep the status quo, no surprise, why are there always outliers or traitors to a cause, country or fight, some blacks wanted to keep Jim Crow, There were a significant minority of Whites from the South who fought against the secessionists in the Civil War, whatever, the South's cause was an immoral one, break apart the country to keep a cruel and frankly not efficient system, Yes the USA would go through many other bad periods, both Jim Crow and the unregulated capitalism of the later 19th Century and first third of the 20th, were nothing to brag about and brought misery, but argue all you want with anecdotes, The main problem with these arguments is they still gives credence to a divisive society, where one side celebrates the attempt to retain a system that brutalized a whole class of people just because they could be racially enslaved, and the results of that brutal system live with us, retards our society and our economy, and leaves us still divided, for no good reason.
"Abe was a hard Core White Supremacist who wanted Blacks out of America. So you know his comments in the Gettysburg Address had nothing to do with emancipation."
Lincoln had largely given up on colonization once the EP was issued and keep in mind that by November 1863 Black soldiers had fought and died on a number of battlefields. Lincoln was profoundly moved by their bravery.
I am familiar with this book. I said "largely given up on colonization." It certainly did not occupy the same place in his thinking as it did earlier in his presidency.
“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.“ For me, the opposite has been true. I learned about the importance of the battle once, and have long since forgotten the names of individual combatants. Furthest point reached north? Not sure that it mattered once the Union war machine really started rolling. But Lincoln’s words, as a rhetorical study if nothing else, have continued to come up in my annual move through curriculum. Context: I teach middle school US History.
Thanks for the comment. As a former high school history teacher, I completely agree with you. The text is so incredibly rich and accessible for students. There are so many ways to use it, but I tended to pair it up with other speeches, either from the Civil War era or more broadly over time. Thanks for everything you do for your students.
A Lincoln sentence that especially resonates for me (as it does for commenter Richard Houston): "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."
I have a strong personal reason to think we still don't fully understand all that that unfinished work entails.
I was missing a huge component of it in 2005, when the Army announced its planned 2011 departure from Fort Monroe, Virginia, on the Chesapeake Bay sand spit Point Comfort, where the first captive Africans arrived in 1619.
The overall historic, prime-waterfront post at Fort Monroe is a longtime cherished public place. It contains a magnificent, moated stone citadel built by enslaved labor decades before the Civil War.
But even though in 2005 I knew plenty enough to begin publicly opposing Virginia's crass plans to overdevelop the post, and even though I had decades of family memories there, I had no idea that during the Civil war, enterprising slavery escapees had called Fort Monroe "Freedom's Fortress."
In fact in 1861, U.S. slavery that had begun in 1619 as colonial slavery on that sand spit began to crumble there. The movement that some historians call "self-emancipation" got its first big boost there--a boost that started with the self-agency, the brave initiative, of slavery escapees Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend. Those freedom strivers’ request for sanctuary started what Edward L. Ayers once called “the greatest moment in American history.”
Henry Louis Gates Jr. declared that moment “the beginning of the end of slavery.” For James M. McPherson, the phrase was “the story of the end of slavery in America.” Adam Goodheart, adapting from his "1861: The Civil War Awakening," explained the story in the New York Times Magazine article “How Slavery Really Ended in America.”
Across the land, many historians say, multitudes of slavery escapees figured centrally in transforming a war for union into a war for both union and freedom.
I think a big part of the work that President Lincoln called unfinished is for us to recognize and esteem what those multitudes of enterprising slavery escapees did. It's a story for a world where freedom and human dignity will always be imperiled. And it's a story for all sides in our history wars.
My free-to-subscribe Substack, "The Self-Emancipator," monitors and advocates the progress of that unfinished work.
Thanks to all of you for taking the time to leave such thoughtful comments. I really enjoyed reading them.
Timeless? I'll tell you just how timeless - and limitless - the Gettysburg Address is, even if I have to go all the way back to 1989 to do it.
We were home-hosting an intern in my marketing company. He was a recent graduate of Beijing University ('Beida') and doing postgraduate work at Dominican College across the Golden Gate Bridge. Then, the Tienanmen Square Demonstrations led to the infamous Massacre. My wife, who performed refugee and immigration work for then-junior Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, was knee-deep helping Chinese Democracy Scholars process asylum applications, and we both led various assistive movements in San Francisco.
One day, Ken (his name both in Mandarin and English) suddenly burst out. "Fourscore and Seven Years ago...." and recited it from memory -- and obviously by heart, to the end. When he was an English major at Beida, one of the PRC's most prestigious schools, he had memorized numerous American documents, including the Constitution's preamble.
BTW, a year later, my wife's boss visited Beijing on a Congressional visit. Nancy visited Tienanmen Square to lay a wreath honoring the Martyrs; PRC cops hustled her and her wreath away and she nearly ended up in a PRC jail! In her case, perhaps, it was due to being born a few miles from Fort McHenry and graduating with a history degree.
In my penultimate federal job earlier that decade, President Reagan named a brilliant but reactionary Slav to head my agency - Office of the Special Counsel, the very one flouted by Trump's White House staff. He, too, could recite many documents from memory. He was another refugee.
Even if other foreigners (like Churchill, tho only half-British) snark that Americans do the right thing but only as the final alternative, our best political writers reached more than fellow Americans in the span of one century.
I wish I could see or be told what the Gettysburg sign protesting the CSA/ANV reenactors said. Not enough of that has been happening. Perhaps those reenactors should be encouraged to sign a loyalty oath? Perhaps even: the same loyalty oath required in 1865??! I understand there were several; the most appropriate today might be the one Rebel vets called “swallowing the dog”.
Better now than never.
One of my friends was studying in Beijing in 1989 and saw the aftermath of the massacre of students at Tiananmen Square. He was struck by one protest sign he saw that began (in Mandarin) "When in the course of human events..."
Confederates don't belong in the Gettysburg parade.
At Gettysburg Lincoln memorably and transformatively argued the war was about democracy and equality. Cynics and libertarians attack the Gettysburg speech, arguing it falsely identifies the Union forces as the side fighting for "self-determination". They miss the point. Democracy and equality are much under attack these days. Let's hope Americans return to Lincoln's words as we seek to protect our freedoms and democratic way of life.
RE: Confederates. It was the large number of CSAs in the parade that stood out to me. It shows that this line from Lincoln’s speech still rings out quite loudly: “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.”
First, I agree with your concerns about Confederate participation in the ceremonies remembering the Gettysburg Address. I do not think it is appropriate.
Second, I think the Gettysburg Address has great importance for us today. It is one of a handful of documents that clearly and succinctly expresses our founding ideals and what, as a nation, we have struggled to achieve since at least 1775. These were radical ideas when Lincoln expressed them for the mid-19th century, not as radical as they perhaps were in the mid-18th century when first expressed by the founders but still radical. These are ideas that should still guide us.
Kevin,
This is well worth the read. When I led the Gettysburg Staff Ride at the Joint Forces Staff College, I always finished it at the Soldier’s Cemetery to discuss why the war was fought concluding with a reading of the Gettysburg Address. Sometimes, other visitors to the cemetery would join us. On one of those occasions, just prior to the election of Donald Trump, an older couple, he said that they were from Georgia joined us. When I finished the reading and my students contemplated it, the man came up to me and said, “I am glad that people are not created equal”. He then laughed in my face, turned and walked away. I was shocked, but then maybe I shouldn’t have been with all of the pro-Confederate merchandise in Gettysburg’s gift shops, including T-Shirts that said “I am not Reconstructed”. As you said, from the day that it entered Pennsylvania, Lee’s Army was out to capture and enslave Blacks, including free Blacks. To see Confederate re-enactors March through Gettysburg, almost like a conquering army bothers me.
Thank you for posting this with your thoughts.
Peace,
Steve Dundas
Thanks for that sobering story. It calls to mind Professor Scott Hancock's video, embedded in the main "Civil War Memory" posting here, and showing him forthrightly contesting the counterfactual historical ugliness lobbed at him at Gettysburg.
What hits hard, "that all men are created equal," falls a bit differently in my heart now that when I was a child for sure. I used to believe that MEN really meant men, women, boys, girls; these days, that understanding seems in peril. The other phrase which hits hard is the "full measure of devotion" given by those who served. How devoted are today's politicians? How do they demonstrate they are devoted to country over party, to people over politics? *sigh*
I like the way that the historian Heather Cox Richardson handles the "all men" problem in her Substack. She simply ignores it. I guess she probably reasons that everybody understands how we nowadays think of that phase, so why bother stopping to engage it again?
By the way, I hope you're overstating your dread that "that understanding seems in peril," but I see what you mean.
FWIW, in Junior High in the early 70s I had to memorize The Gettysburg Address for history class. We also memorized the preambles to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They also took all of us to see Gone with the Wind, so we got a bit of a mixed message there. :)
OMG! That *is* some intense mixed messaging, Mark. Wow. I guess that was the 70s version of ... but, but both sides?
I suspect part of the rationale was that GWTW is an important part of movie history. Besides, my teachers would have been taught the Dunning School "Reconstruction was a Failure" interpretation themselves, so that's what they passed on. They did NOT teach that secession was over "states rights", but that slavery was the root cause of the war, so there's that.
Only in the past few years have I read much scholarship about the devastating effect on Black civilians in the town, and the Confederate dependance on enslaved Blacks to provide logistical support to white confederates while being exposed without defense in the Battle.
I wonder where the free Black survivors were that day that Lincoln spoke? Had they recovered their places back in the town by then? Can you recommend a particular author who may have focused on the aftermath through the Fall?
I used to be pretty sanguine that government of/by/for the people was safe from perishing, but not so much in the last few years.
When I saw this post, I dug out some of my files that I maintained as a teacher of some forty-two years. I used to "seminar" Lincoln's two inaugurals and the Gettysburg Address, the later of which is perhaps proof that the pen is mightier than the sword.
To me, the depth and power of the Gettysburg Address rests on our being a "propositional" nation. Our conception in liberty stressed the separation from the British Empire and a political independence, but liberty also came to mean the right of white people to own black people as chattel. White freedom often rested on black slavery. As Wilmore Kendall noted, Lincoln infused the Declaration of Independence with constitutional status; national power might hurdle constitutional restraints to spread equality. In effect, Lincoln altered the Constitution from within, by appeal from its letter to its spirit.
Various groups in our history have demanded an appeal to that spirit--rightly so--in order to live up to our stated creed. And, of course, the battle continues as various groups assert their rights. The Gettysburg Address serves as a living, real reminder of what we are to stand for as a nation.
I used to ask students the following questions:
Why do you think Lincoln mentioned neither the North nor the South in his speech. In addition, he mentioned no names at all. Why?
By giving the Address, did Lincoln betray the instrument he was on oath to defend?
Can you rewrite a charter of government--our Constitution--by the use of the spoken word?
Those are good questions. I would have answered much differently when I was in high school (1975-1979) than now.
Just behind Scott you can see some dude decked out in his standard Virginia Tech colors making sure he stays safe.
Sorry I didn't notice you, Al. Good work, my friend.
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.
Two related themes : Racial Justice and Democracy (or the lack of) - We cannot have one without the other.
1) We needed a new birth of freedom due to the lack of freedom for enslaved people. We tried reconstruction which had some success but this was reversed by the undemocratic racist agenda of the southern democratic party. At times this involved violent overthrow of biracial Republican state and local government.
2)In recent times we see a similar attempt to overthrow democracy leading to January 6 and followed on ongoing attempts to disenfranchise and ignore democratic results. Some of this is based on white nationalism which is related to the "redeemer" movement to roll back Reconstruction. There is also a world-wide movement in this area.
Lincoln is telling is that we needed to have a second American revolution to complete the ideal presented in the Declaration of Independence since he Constitution did not fulfill this vision. This second revolution is a work in progress with two steps forward and at times steps back. We need to continue the work or we risk losing our democracy.
well said.
"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." I believe we are facing a clear indication that government "of the people, by the people, for the people.." is clearly in grave danger of perishing with the dominance of the so called MAGA movement in the Republican Party,
"Let us not forget that it is oratory, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it! Put it into the cold words of everyday! The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination — “that government of the people, by the people, for the people,” should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves." Mencken
I guess ole Mencken didn't count the millions of black people in the south as people, sort of a flaw in his argument.
Perhaps, but he was referring to the fact that it was the confederates fighting for independence,Not the federals LIncoln as you remember stated quite clearly he was fighting to "Save the Union" not free the slaves..Even the Emancipation Proclamation was only justified as "War"measure." Abe was a hard Core White Supremacist who wanted Blacks out of America. So you know his comments in the Gettysburg Address had nothing to do with emancipation. Unfortunately his actions brought about what Lee prognosticated
“The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.”
Again the "freedom" they were fighting for was the "freedom" to keep black people enslaved in perpetuity, seems like a skewed type of freedom, I do remember William F
Buckley saying if the people in the South want to keep segregation we should let them, of course he didn't seem to think blacks were people or at least worthy of a say in that fight.
Well of course in the abstract you can make that claim however it's fallacious reasoning. the average confederate soldier had their own reasons for fighting I'm sure some of them were fighting because they were attached to the institution of slavery. McPherson in his book why they fought went over the various reasons soldiers game. however if you're going to be honest instead of just using the tire brush you have to examine each States reason for succession. well I would certainly agree that the institution of slavery along with several other issues such as tariffs what is the primary reason the original seceding States of the Confederacy left the Union. of course we can all Quote the words of Alexander Stevenson on the subject. However the states is seceded after that did clearly over Lincoln's call for a militia to be formed to force the Confederacy back into the Union. That's precisely when all the rest of them seceded. In fact in their orders of secession none of them even mentioned the word slavery save Virginia. In Virginia's case it's simply says the suppression at the southern slave states obviously referring to the call for the militia.
As I am sure you're aware when the colonies left the United Kingdom they were granted their independence as separate Sovereign Nations. They then gathered together to form a union but none of them explicitly gave up the rights to secession. I know my great-grandfather and his brothers who fought in the 27th Virginia it was a simple matter that they were being invaded by Yankees .They're great grandparents had fought in a revolution for their independence they did not see this any differently. so I can just as easily argue that Union Soldiers fought the subjugate the Southern States and to destroy the principle of Jeffersonian democracy. however applying that to individual soldiers would be specious.
I couldn't care less what William Buckley said he's the quintessential Yankee although being Irish Catholic is a Different Twist. Believe me no population in the world is more anti-semitic than Irish Catholics.That's why you see so many of them cheering for Hamas. Segregation was bad but it happened after the Civil War so no Confederates,The noble Yankees wanted no part of black people coming up from the south at that time. all the Union States had absurdly vicious Sundown laws, Illinois was Chief among them.
When you burn down cities and employ a scorched Earth policy two states that had once been your partner you need a noble reason for it. and that's the noble cause myth of freeing the slaves was born about the same time as the Lost Cause myth. My mother's side had a few Confederate soldiers as well but they fought for probably different reasons than those in Virginia. first of all not all of them could fight because they were mixed race. when my Cajun ancestors came out of Canada they were already Meti. Their fathers and grandfathers more often than not had First Nation wives, Abenaki and Micmac. so they were a little melanin or Rich too marry with pure Frenchies. and so many of them married gen de color Libre. free people of color. One side of that family owns slaves which destroys the myth that all descendants of Africans were United against slavery like all human beings black folks actions revolve around their own self-interest. there was at least one line of mine who did serve in the Confederacy in some combat situations that was a man named Ephraim Sweat and his brothers.
Ephraimwas the descendant of William Sweat and indentured servant and a woman called Margaret Cornish who is in the dongle woman who arrived in Virginia in 1619 aboard the The English Privateer the White Lion. Margaret served a period of indentured servitude but was not a slave per se. don't know exactly what his motives were. don't let anyone tell you that there were no people of African descent in the Confederacy there was but they usually had to be pretty pale and only a few of them served any kind of capacity in combat. I'm a descendant of Ephraim's father Mulatto Bill Sweat. My point being that the labeling of all Confederate soldiers as being fighting for slavery Is rather sophistic.
there are many many reasons why someone would join an army as in in the case of the Civil War sides slavery; peer pressure, family pressure, join with friends, racial prejudice, local prejudice, but historians are almost universally in agreement that the political leaders of the Southern States and oligarchs pushed for secession for one singular rationale, the loss of political power of slavery, and that slavery needed consistent power to keep viable. Tariffs had long been on the back burner as they had been reduced substantially since the nullification fights and some Southern regions actually benefitted. Yes the Republicans were pro tariff and wanted to pass the Morrill tariff but they wouldn't have the votes till the Southern States seceded, no secession on Morrill tariff, son slavery no secession; as far as some blacks wanting to keep the status quo, no surprise, why are there always outliers or traitors to a cause, country or fight, some blacks wanted to keep Jim Crow, There were a significant minority of Whites from the South who fought against the secessionists in the Civil War, whatever, the South's cause was an immoral one, break apart the country to keep a cruel and frankly not efficient system, Yes the USA would go through many other bad periods, both Jim Crow and the unregulated capitalism of the later 19th Century and first third of the 20th, were nothing to brag about and brought misery, but argue all you want with anecdotes, The main problem with these arguments is they still gives credence to a divisive society, where one side celebrates the attempt to retain a system that brutalized a whole class of people just because they could be racially enslaved, and the results of that brutal system live with us, retards our society and our economy, and leaves us still divided, for no good reason.
"Abe was a hard Core White Supremacist who wanted Blacks out of America. So you know his comments in the Gettysburg Address had nothing to do with emancipation."
Lincoln had largely given up on colonization once the EP was issued and keep in mind that by November 1863 Black soldiers had fought and died on a number of battlefields. Lincoln was profoundly moved by their bravery.
Abe had come around and evolved as did Confederate general Longstreet, and many others,
Longstreet was looking for a job.Abe wa power brookier nothing eklses devolid on any moral qualitys
He had not given up on it.
ithttps://www.amazon.com/Colonization-After-Emancipation-Movement-Resettlement/dp/0826219098#:~:text=Colonization%20after%20Emancipation%20reveals%20Lincoln's,emigrants%20for%20the%20proposed%20colonies.
I am familiar with this book. I said "largely given up on colonization." It certainly did not occupy the same place in his thinking as it did earlier in his presidency.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, James.
“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.“ For me, the opposite has been true. I learned about the importance of the battle once, and have long since forgotten the names of individual combatants. Furthest point reached north? Not sure that it mattered once the Union war machine really started rolling. But Lincoln’s words, as a rhetorical study if nothing else, have continued to come up in my annual move through curriculum. Context: I teach middle school US History.
Hi Zack,
Thanks for the comment. As a former high school history teacher, I completely agree with you. The text is so incredibly rich and accessible for students. There are so many ways to use it, but I tended to pair it up with other speeches, either from the Civil War era or more broadly over time. Thanks for everything you do for your students.