Speech · 1863

Gettysburg Address

At the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Lincoln followed a two-hour oration by Edward Everett with remarks of fewer than 300 words. He described the war as a test of whether a nation “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” could endure, and called on the living to resolve that the nation would have “a new birth of freedom.” Five manuscript copies in Lincoln’s hand survive, two of them at the Library of Congress; the Bliss copy, the only one he signed and dated, is the standard text and is engraved in the Lincoln Memorial.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

Why it matters

Among the most celebrated speeches in American history, it recast the war around the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the ideal of government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Read the full text at nps.gov

Primary Source

The original record, reproduced or linked from the institution that holds it. Primary sources show what people said and did in their own words.

Subjects

civil war union equality democracy

From the library

Related Documents

PM·DOC·1863·028Primary Source

Proclamation · October 3, 1863

Proclamation of Thanksgiving, 1863

In the midst of civil war, Lincoln invited Americans at home, at sea and abroad to observe the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving and praise, citing a year of “fruitful fields and healthful skies,” preserved peace with foreign nations and continued national growth. He asked citizens to commend to God’s care all who had been widowed, orphaned or left mourning by the war, and to pray for the healing of the nation.

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Proclamation · January 1, 1863

Emancipation Proclamation

Issued as “a fit and necessary war measure” one hundred days after Lincoln’s preliminary proclamation of September 22, 1862, the proclamation declared that all persons held as slaves in the states and parts of states then in rebellion “are, and henceforward shall be free.” It did not apply to the loyal border slave states or to several Union-occupied areas of the South, and it announced that freed men would be received into the armed service of the United States.

Held by National ArchivesOpen archive

PM·DOC·1861·023Primary Source

Speech · March 4, 1861

First Inaugural Address

Delivered after seven Southern states had declared secession, Lincoln’s address held that “the Union of these States is perpetual” and that no state “upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union,” while repeating that he had no purpose to interfere with slavery in the states where it existed. He promised to hold federal property and collect duties without using force against the people anywhere, and told the South that “the momentous issue of civil war” lay in its hands, not his.

Held by Library of CongressOpen archive