Editing Gettysburg Address (section)

{{Short description|1863 speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln}}
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{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2018}}
{{Infobox historical event
| title = Gettysburg Address
| image = Lincolnatgettysburg.jpg
| partof = the [[Eastern theater of the American Civil War]]
| caption = One of only two confirmed photos of [[Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln]] (seated in center facing camera) at [[Gettysburg National Cemetery|Gettysburg]],<ref>{{cite news|title=Ultrarare photo of Abraham Lincoln discovered|url=https://www.foxnews.com/science/ultrarare-photo-of-abraham-lincoln-discovered/|access-date=September 25, 2013|newspaper=Fox News|date=September 24, 2013|archive-date=September 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130925100344/http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/09/24/ultra-rare-photo-abraham-lincoln-discovered/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Lidz |first=Franz |date=October 2013 |title=Will the Real Abraham Lincoln Please Stand Up? |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Will-the-Real-Abraham-Lincoln-Please-Stand-Up-224911272.html |magazine=Smithsonian |access-date=October 3, 2013 |archive-date=September 28, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928041334/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Will-the-Real-Abraham-Lincoln-Please-Stand-Up-224911272.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Brian |first=Wolly |date=October 2013 |title=Interactive: Seeking Abraham Lincoln at the Gettysburg Address |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Interactive_Seeking_Abraham_Lincoln_at_the_Gettysburg_Address.html |magazine=Smithsonian |access-date=October 3, 2013 |archive-date=September 29, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130929144857/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Interactive_Seeking_Abraham_Lincoln_at_the_Gettysburg_Address.html |url-status=live }}</ref> taken about noon on November 19, 1863; some three hours later, Lincoln delivered the famed address. To Lincoln's right is [[Ward Hill Lamon]], Lincoln's bodyguard.
| date = {{Start date and age|November 19, 1863}}
}}{{Abraham Lincoln series}}

The '''Gettysburg Address''' is a [[Public speaking|speech]] delivered by [[Abraham Lincoln]], the 16th [[President of the United States|U.S. president]], following the [[Battle of Gettysburg]] during the [[American Civil War]]. The speech has come to be viewed as one of the most famous, enduring, and historically significant speeches in [[history of the United States|American history]].

Lincoln delivered the speech on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, during a formal dedication of Soldiers' National Cemetery, now known as [[Gettysburg National Cemetery]], on the grounds where the Battle of Gettysburg was fought four and a half months earlier, between July 1 and July 3, 1863, in [[Gettysburg, Pennsylvania]]. In the battle, [[Union army]] soldiers successfully repelled and defeated [[Confederate States Army|Confederate forces]] in what proved to be both the Civil War's deadliest and most decisive battle, resulting in over 50,000 Confederate and [[Union army]] casualties in a Union victory, which altered the war's course in the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]]'s favor.<ref>{{cite book |last=Conant |first=Sean |date=2015 |title=The Gettysburg Address: Perspectives on Lincoln's Greatest Speech |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_bmyBwAAQBAJ&pg=PR9 |location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press |page=ix |isbn=978-0-19-022745-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Holsinger |first=M. Paul |date=1999 |title=War and American Popular Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Oe4AOVHkJ9oC&pg=PA102 |location=Westport, CT |publisher=Greenwood Press |page=102 |isbn=978-0-313-29908-7}}</ref>

The historical and enduring significance and fame of the Gettysburg Address is at least partly attributable to its conscious brevity, including only 271 words and comprising less than two minutes before a crowd of approximately 15,000 people, which gathered to join in commemorating the sacrifice of the Union soldiers, over 23,000 of whom were killed over the three day Battle of Gettysburg. In his brief but historical speech, Lincoln described the Union's cause in the Civil War as necessary to validate that the sovereignty and freedoms the nation successfully secured less than nine decades earlier in the [[American Revolution]], [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]], and nation's establishment, could prove enduring.

Despite the historical significance and fame that the speech ultimately obtained, Lincoln was not intended to serve as the primary speaker at the cemetery's dedication that day, and his brief speech consumed a very small fraction of the day's event, which lasted for several hours. Nor was Lincoln's address immediately recognized as particularly significant. Over time, however, it came to be viewed widely as one of the greatest and most influential statements ever delivered on the American national purpose, enduring in  significance throughout the nation's history, and also as one of the most prominent examples of the successful use of the [[English language]] and [[rhetoric]] to advance a political cause. "The Gettysburg Address did not enter the broader American canon until decades after Lincoln’s death, following [[World War I]] and the 1922 opening of the [[Lincoln Memorial]], where the speech is etched in marble. As the Gettysburg Address gained in popularity, it became a staple of school textbooks and readers, and the succinctness of the three paragraph oration permitted it to be memorized by generations of American school children," the [[History Channel]] reported in November 2024.<ref>[https://www.history.com/news/gettysburg-address-lincoln-speech-impact "Why the Gettysburg Address Is One of the Most Famous Speeches in History"], the [[History Channel]], November 15, 2024</ref>

Lincoln began his 271-word address in Gettysburg with the now famed phrase, "Four [[20 (number)|score]] and seven years ago", a reference to the nation's founding in the American Revolution, during which the [[Founding Fathers of the United States|Founding Fathers]] ultimately concluded that they could not reconcile their differences with [[George III|King George III]] and instead needed to enjoin and prevail in the Revolutionary War in pursuit of full independence from [[Kingdom of Great Britain|British]] colonial rule. In 1775, the [[Second Continental Congress]], convened in the revolutionary capital of [[Philadelphia]], then established the [[Continental Army]] and elected [[George Washington]] as its commander-in-chief against the [[British Army during the American Revolutionary War|British]]. The following year, in 1776, the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted and issued the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]], which detailed why the [[Thirteen Colonies]] believed they were free and independent from British colonial rule.<ref>{{Cite web|author=Nicole Saidi|title=Gettysburg Address: 5 famous quotes explained|url=https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/19/us/gettysburg-address-famous-quotes/index.html|access-date=2021-06-02|website=CNN|date=November 19, 2015}}</ref>

In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln prominently referenced the nation's founding, describing it as having been "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that [[all men are created equal]]", a reference to a phrase incorporated into the Declaration by [[Thomas Jefferson]]. Lincoln described the Civil War as questioning and testing whether such a nation could endure, extolled the sacrifices of the thousands who died in the Battle of Gettysburg in defense of those principles, and then argued that their sacrifice should elevate the nation's commitment to ensuring the Union prevailed and the nation endured, famously saying:

{{blockquote|that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom<ref name="america58">White Jr., Ronald C. ''The Words That Moved a Nation'' in: "[http://photos.state.gov/libraries/korea/49271/dwoa_122709/lincoln.pdf Abraham Lincoln: A Legacy of Freedom] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170923193718/http://photos.state.gov/libraries/korea/49271/dwoa_122709/lincoln.pdf |date=September 23, 2017 }}", Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State – Bureau of International Information Programs, p. 58.</ref>—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.<ref name="History20130222">{{cite web|title=The Gettysburg Address|url=http://www.history.com/topics/gettysburg-address|publisher=[[History (U.S. TV channel)|History]]|access-date=February 22, 2013|archive-date=December 6, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131206050226/http://www.history.com/topics/gettysburg-address|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Fox|first=Christopher Graham|title=A analysis of Abraham Lincoln's poetic Gettysburg Address|url=http://foxthepoet.blogspot.de/2008/09/poetical-analysis-of-abraham-lincolns.html|publisher=foxthepoet.blogspot.de|access-date=August 21, 2012|date=September 12, 2008}}</ref>}}