- Joined
- Oct 10, 2012
- Location
- Mt. Jackson, Va
President #AbrahamLincoln was known to keep notes on various concepts and thoughts, spinning them around in his head, and on paper, for months. Oftentimes these ideas would later emerge in his most significant writings.
Such was the case with the Gettysburg Address, the seeds of which can be found in a rare, impromptu talk that Lincoln gave at the White House in July, 1863. People had gathered to celebrate double Union victories at Gettysburg National Military Park and at Vicksburg National Military Park when the president revealed the rough beginnings of a much more eloquent speech to come, when he spoke these unscripted words:
“How long ago is it? – eighty odd years – since on the Fourth of July for the first time in the history of the world a nation by its representatives, assembled and declared as a self-evident truth that ‘all men are created equal.’ Now, when we have a gigantic Rebellion, at the bottom of which is an effort to overthrow the principle that all men were created equal…it is appropriate that on the 4th the cohorts of those who opposed the declaration that all men are created equal, ‘turned tail’ and ran.”
These two concurrent Union victories were turning points in a war that threatened American democracy, the form of government that Lincoln called “the last best hope of earth.”
The symbolism of this watershed moment happening on the anniversary of American Independence was not lost on the president, or the country.
https://www.facebook.com/fordstheatrenps/photos/
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Such was the case with the Gettysburg Address, the seeds of which can be found in a rare, impromptu talk that Lincoln gave at the White House in July, 1863. People had gathered to celebrate double Union victories at Gettysburg National Military Park and at Vicksburg National Military Park when the president revealed the rough beginnings of a much more eloquent speech to come, when he spoke these unscripted words:
“How long ago is it? – eighty odd years – since on the Fourth of July for the first time in the history of the world a nation by its representatives, assembled and declared as a self-evident truth that ‘all men are created equal.’ Now, when we have a gigantic Rebellion, at the bottom of which is an effort to overthrow the principle that all men were created equal…it is appropriate that on the 4th the cohorts of those who opposed the declaration that all men are created equal, ‘turned tail’ and ran.”
These two concurrent Union victories were turning points in a war that threatened American democracy, the form of government that Lincoln called “the last best hope of earth.”
The symbolism of this watershed moment happening on the anniversary of American Independence was not lost on the president, or the country.
https://www.facebook.com/fordstheatrenps/photos/