Editing Gettysburg Address (section)

==Lincoln's sources==
In ''Lincoln at Gettysburg'', [[Garry Wills]] notes the parallels between Lincoln's speech and [[Pericles' Funeral Oration|Pericles's Funeral Oration]] during the [[Peloponnesian War]], described by [[Thucydides]]. Pericles' speech, like Lincoln's:

* Begins with an acknowledgment of revered predecessors: "I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honor of the first mention on an occasion like the present"
* Praises the uniqueness of the State's commitment to [[democracy]]: "If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences"
* Honors the sacrifice of the slain, "Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonor, but met danger face to face"
* Exhorts the living to continue the struggle: "You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue."<ref name="McPherson">{{cite magazine|author=McPherson, James M. |title=The Art of Abraham Lincoln|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2852|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110711005933/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1992/jul/16/the-art-of-abraham-lincoln/|archive-date=July 11, 2011|access-date=November 30, 2007|magazine=The New York Review of Books|volume=39|issue=13|date=July 16, 1992}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|publisher=The Constitution Society|year=2007|work=Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics|title=Pericles' Funeral Oration from Thucydides: Peloponnesian War|url=http://www.constitution.org/gr/pericles_funeral_oration.htm|access-date=November 30, 2007|archive-date=October 13, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013171544/http://constitution.org/gr/pericles_funeral_oration.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[James M. McPherson]] notes this connection in his review of Wills's book.<ref name=McPherson/> [[Gore Vidal]] also draws attention to this link in a [[BBC]] documentary about oration.<ref>{{cite news|title=Yes We Can! The Lost Art Of Oratory|date=April 5, 2009|publisher=[[BBC Two]]}}</ref>

In contrast, writer [[Adam Gopnik]], in ''[[The New Yorker]]'', notes that Everett's Oration was explicitly [[Neoclassicism|neoclassical]], referring directly to [[Marathon]] and [[Pericles]]. "Lincoln's rhetoric is, instead, deliberately Biblical. (It is difficult to find a single obviously classical reference in any of his speeches.) Lincoln had mastered the sound of the [[King James Bible]] so completely that he could recast abstract issues of constitutional law in Biblical terms, making the proposition that [[Texas]] and [[New Hampshire]] should be forever bound by a single post office sound like something right out of [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]]," Gopnik wrote.<ref name="Gopnik" />

Wills also observed Lincoln's usage of the imagery of birth, life, and death in the address, during which he referenced the nation as being "brought forth", "conceived", and saying that it shall not "perish".<ref>{{cite journal|author=Vosmeier, Matthew Noah|journal=Lincoln Lore|title=Lincoln and the 'Central Idea of the Occasion': Garry Wills's Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America.|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jala;view=text;rgn=main;idno=2629860.0015.206|publisher=The Lincoln Museum|access-date=November 9, 2009|date=January–February 1992|volume=15|issue=2|archive-date=October 2, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121002094813/http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jala;view=text;rgn=main;idno=2629860.0015.206|url-status=live}}</ref> A 1959 thesis by William J. Wolf suggested that the address had a central image of baptism, although Glenn LaFantasie, writing for the ''[[Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association]]'', believes that Wolf's position was likely an overstatement. Philip B. Kunhardt Jr. suggests that Lincoln was inspired by the ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]''.{{sfn|LaFantasie|1995|pp=74{{endash}}75}}

[[Allen C. Guelzo]], director of Civil War-era studies at [[Gettysburg College]] in Gettysburg<ref>{{cite news|author=Guelzo, Allen C.|url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110009279|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090214002123/http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110009279|archive-date=February 14, 2009|title=When the Court lost its Conscience|access-date=November 26, 2006|work=The Wall Street Journal|date=November 21, 2006}}</ref> and others have suggested that Lincoln's phrase, "four score and seven", was an indirect reference to the [[King James Version]] of the [[Bible]] {{sourcetext|source=Bible|version=King James|book=Psalms |chapter=90|verse=10}} in which man's lifespan is described as "threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years".<ref>{{cite web |author=McInerney, Daniel J. |title=Review of Allen C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President |url=http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4542 |access-date=November 30, 2007 |work=H-Pol, H-Net Reviews |date=September 2000 |archive-date=May 3, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210503122618/https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4542 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Allen C. |last=Guelzo |title=Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President |location=Grand Rapids, Michigan |publisher=[[William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.]] |year=1999 |isbn=0-8028-3872-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/abrahamlincolnre00guel }}</ref> LaFantasie also connected "four score and seven years" with Psalms 90:10, and referred to Lincoln's usage of the phrase "our fathers" as "mindful of the Lord's Prayer". He also refers to Garry Wills's tracing of spiritual language in the address to the [[Gospel of Luke]].{{sfn|LaFantasie|1995|p=74}}

==="Government of the people, by the people, for the people"===
[[File:Government-Vedder-Highsmith-detail-2.jpeg|thumb|[[Elihu Vedder]]'s 1896 mural ''Government'', inscribed with Lincoln's famed phrase, "government of the people, by the people, for the people", now housed in the [[Library of Congress]] in [[Washington, D.C.]]]]
Lincoln scholars maintain several theories on Lincoln's use of his famed phrase "government of the people, by the people, for the people" in the Gettysburg Address. Despite some claims to the contrary, there is no evidence that a similar phrase appears in the prologue of [[John Wycliffe]]'s 1384 English translation of the [[Bible]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Haney|first1=John L.|title=Of the People, by the People, for the People|journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society|date=November 7, 1944|volume=88|issue=5|pages=359–367|url=http://libill.hartford.edu:2110/stable/985609|access-date=July 24, 2017|archive-date=November 18, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181118164638/http://libill.hartford.edu:2110/stable/985609|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In a discussion, "A more probable origin of a famous Lincoln phrase" in 1901,<ref>Shaw, Albert, ed. ''The American Monthly Review of Reviews''. Vol. XXIII, January–June 1901. New York: The Review of Reviews Company. p. 336.</ref> published in ''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'', [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] minister [[John White Chadwick]] observed that [[William Herndon (lawyer)|William Herndon]], Lincoln's law partner who authored ''Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of A Great Life'' in 1888, was known to have brought Lincoln several sermons by [[Theodore Parker]], an [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] [[Minister (Christianity)|minister]] from [[Massachusetts]], which proved inspiring and influential to Lincoln, writing that:

{{blockquote|I brought with me additional sermons and lectures of Theodore Parker, who was warm in his commendation of Lincoln. One of these was a lecture on "The Effect of Slavery on the American People"&nbsp;... which I gave to Lincoln, who read and returned it. He liked especially the following expression, which he marked with a pencil, and which he in substance afterwards used in his Gettysburg Address: "Democracy is direct self-government, over all the people, for all the people, by all the people."<ref>Herndon, William H. and Jesse W. Welk (1892). ''Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of A Great Life'' New York: D. Appleton and Company. Vol II., p. 65.</ref>}}

Craig R. Smith, in "Criticism of Political Rhetoric and Disciplinary Integrity", published in 2000, suggested that the views of government that Lincoln described in the Gettysburg Address were influenced by [[Daniel Webster]], a [[United States Senate|U.S. Senator]] from [[Massachusetts]]. In Webster's [[Webster-Hayne debate|"Second Reply to Hayne"]] speech, delivered in the U.S. Senate on January 26, 1830, Webster said that, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"<ref>{{cite journal|author=Smith, Craig|journal=American Communication Journal|volume=4|issue=1|date=Fall 2000|title=Criticism of Political Rhetoric and Disciplinary Integrity|url=http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol4/iss1/special/smith.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090505141447/http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol4/iss1/special/smith.htm|archive-date=May 5, 2009 |access-date=November 26, 2007 }}</ref> Webster described the [[Federal government of the United States|federal government]] as, "made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people", potentially influencing Lincoln's development of the phrase "government of the people, by the people, for the people", one of the most prominent sentences of the Gettysburg Address.<ref name=Dartmouth>{{cite web |work=Daniel Webster: Dartmouth's Favorite Son |title=The Second Reply to Hayne (January 26–27, 1830) |url=http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dwebster/speeches/hayne-speech.html |access-date=November 30, 2007 |publisher=Dartmouth |archive-date=December 3, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071203094343/http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dwebster/speeches/hayne-speech.html |url-status=dead}}</ref> Webster, in turn, may have been influenced by an 1819 speech by [[John Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton]], who said, "I am a man chosen for the people, by the people; and, if elected, I will do no other business than that of the people."<ref>See Broughton, John and Burdett, Francis. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=CrgHAAAAQAAJ&dq=by-the-people+for-the-people+government+%22of+the+people%22+date:1000-1825&pg=PA105 An Authentic Narrative of the Events of the Westminster Election, which Commenced on Saturday, February 13th, and Closed on Wednesday, March 3d, 1819] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160503155530/https://books.google.com/books?id=CrgHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA105&dq=by-the-people+for-the-people+government+%22of+the+people%22+date:1000-1825&lr=&num=100&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES&ei=pACCSe2EIqGayASV-7GxAQ |date=May 3, 2016 }}'' p. 105 (Published by R. Stodart, 1819).</ref> In Webster's 1830 speech to the U.S. Senate, he said, "This government, Sir, is the independent offspring of the popular will. It is not the creature of State legislatures; nay, more, if the whole truth must be told, the people brought it into existence, established it, and have hitherto supported it, for the very purpose, amongst others, of imposing certain salutary restraints on State sovereignties."<ref name=Dartmouth/>

Some {{who|date=May 2025}} argue that Lincoln may have been influenced by a speech by [[Lajos Kossuth]], the leader of the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1848]], given before [[Ohio General Assembly|Ohio legislature]] on February 19, 1852, which included the phrase, "The spirit of our age is Democracy. All for the people, and all by the people. Nothing about the people without the people – That is Democracy! […]",<ref>{{cite web | url=https://ohiohistoryhost.org/ohiomemory/archives/3834 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414134246/https://ohiohistoryhost.org/ohiomemory/archives/3834 | archive-date=April 14, 2019 | title="All for the People, and All by the People"–Lajos Kossuth's Fight for Hungarian Independence }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.americanhungarianfederation.org/FamousHungarians/kossuth.htm | title=The Hungary Page - Louis (Lajos) Kossuth: Father of Hungarian Democracy }}</ref>