On November 19, 1863, Edward Everett, one of America’s great 19th century orators, gave a more than two-hour speech at the ceremony dedicating a new cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. When he was done, President Abraham Lincoln, who had been asked by the event’s organizers to give “a few appropriate remarks,” stood up to speak.
According to E.W. Andrews, a soldier and lawyer who attended the dedication, Lincoln, “came out before the vast assembly, and stepped slowly to the front of the platform, with his hands clasped before him, his natural sadness of expression deepened, his head bent forward, and his eyes cast to the ground. In this attitude he stood for a few seconds, silent, as if communing with his own thoughts; and when he began to speak, and throughout his entire address, his manner indicated no consciousness of the presence of tens of thousands hanging on his lips, but rather of one who, like the prophet of old, was overmastered by some unseen spirit of the scene, and passively gave utterance to the memories, the feelings, the counsels and the prophecies with which he was inspired….There was such evidence of wisdom and purity and benevolence and moral grandeur, higher and beyond the reach of ordinary men, that the great assembly listened almost awe-struck as to a voice from the divine oracle.”
To Lincoln, the silence was a sign that his 271-word speech, which was delivered in a little over two minutes, was bad. Others did not share that opinion. Everett wrote to congratulate him, saying, “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.” Lincoln merely replied: “I am pleased to know that, in your judgment, the little I did say was not entirely a failure.”
Of course, Lincoln had not been a failure. Rather, his remarks became one of the most famous speeches in American history.
Because it is famous, the speech – which is honored by today’s #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp issued on November 19, 1949 – is easily dismissed and sometimes parodied. For example, my father was – and I am – particularly fond of Bob Newhart’s “Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue” monologue that kicks off Side A of his first album, which was the first comedy album to hit number one on the Billboard charts.
Like most of Newhart’s early sketches, the routine consists of one side of an imagined telephone conversation. In this case Newhart, who had recently read “The Hidden Persuaders,” which talked about the danger of PR men creating images in presidential campaigns, imagined the call between Lincoln and his press agent right before the speech in Gettysburg.
Hi, Abe, sweetheart. How are you? the press agent asks adding, “Listen, Abe, I got to know, what’s the problem?”. “You’re thinking of shaving it off….Abe, don’t you see that’s part of the image? Right, with the shawl and the stovepipe hat and the string tie….You don’t have a shawl….Where is the shawl, Abe?
Later the agent says: “Abe, you got to do the speech. Abe you haven’t changed the speech?…Abe, why do you change the speeches?…You changed – you changed ‘four score and seven’ to 87?…I understand. I understand….Abe, that’s meant to be a grabber.”
Even though the speech has long been a shop-worn cliché, it’s worth a more serious look at this extraordinarily fractured moment in our political life. As Newhart pointed out, Lincoln opened by reminding his listeners of what the nation stands for, saying “fourscore 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.”
Lincoln continued by noting survivors could not fully honor the more than 7,000 soldiers killed over the course of a 3-day battle earlier in the year, observing: “We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.”
Nevertheless, Lincoln said, the living should be “dedicated to the great task remaining before us…[and] 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,” a phrase that is reprinted on today’s stamp.
Lincoln’s charge is particularly powerful in light of the current, unconscionable attacks on votes cast by residents of urban areas, most of them people of color. His charge is further amplified by a second Lincoln-related stamp issued on November 19, 1960 that was part of the five-stamp “American Credo” series, which was supposed to “re-emphasize the ideals upon which America was founded.”
Although that stamp was issued on the 97th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, it does not use any of its famous phrases. Instead, it quotes an 1859 letter, in which Lincoln warned: “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”
At this moment when powerful forces are trying to deny others the basic freedom of voting and of having those votes count, I find it powerful to both listen to Lincoln’s warning and to heed his call to fight for a “new birth of freedom.”
Be well, stay safe, fight for freedom, and work for peace.