Those words, some of the most famous in US history, were the beginning of Abraham Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg. The speech was given at the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery (now known as Gettysburg National Cemetery) on 19 November, just four and a half months after the battle of Gettysburg.
The speech only lasted two minutes and was only 272 words long, at least in the most widely accepted version. There are at least five versions of the Gettysburg address, all differing slightly, but the ‘Bliss’ copy, is the one considered the official text of the speech.
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.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
The words “under God” do not appear in the Nicolay and Hay drafts but are included in the three later copies (Everett, Bancroft, and Bliss). Accordingly, some skeptics maintain that Lincoln did not utter the words “under God” at Gettysburg. However, at least three reporters telegraphed the text of Lincoln’s speech on the day the Address was given with the words “under God” included. Historian William E. Barton argues that “Every stenographic report, good, bad and indifferent, says ‘that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom.’ There was no common source from which all the reporters could have obtained those words but from Lincoln’s own lips at the time of delivery.”
Contemporary reaction to the speech was divided. Some felt it was one of the Great Speeches, others were less impressed. I feel it’s my duty to point out that most, if not all, those who disliked the speech were partisan Democrats.