Editing Gettysburg Address (section)

==="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>