[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 29 (Thursday, February 12, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2171-S2172]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




READING THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS ON THE BICENTENNIAL OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S 
                                 BIRTH

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today marks the bicentennial of the birth 
of America's greatest President, Abraham Lincoln. This morning, as part 
of the nationwide celebration of this historic anniversary, the Abraham 
Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in my hometown of Springfield, 
IL, is sponsoring a simultaneous reading of the Gettysburg Address by 
schoolchildren from coast to coast. I remember as a schoolchild 
memorizing the Gettysburg Address. I am happy to see that a new 
generation of American children is studying what many consider to be 
the greatest speech in our Nation's history.
  But we can all learn from Lincoln. We are never too old. So this 
morning we in the Senate will also listen to the speech that many 
consider the greatest summation in our Nation's history of the meaning 
and price of freedom.
  After that, some of us will take the floor and share our thoughts on 
President Lincoln's immortal words and his powerful and enduring 
legacy.
  These are the words President Abraham Lincoln spoke on the blood-
drenched battlefield in Gettysburg, PA, on November 19, 1863:

       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 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. 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.

  The Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania was the largest battle ever 
fought on American soil. In the third summer of the Civil War, the Army 
of the Potomac met the Army of Northern Virginia at a crossroads near 
the small market town of Gettysburg, PA. For 3 brutal days, from July 1 
to July 3, more than 160,000 American solders clashed in what would 
prove to be a decisive Union victory and a turning point in the war.
  When the cannons and guns fell silent on July 4, our Nation's 
birthday, more than 51,000 Confederate and Union soldiers were wounded, 
missing, or dead. And 4\1/2\ months later, when President Lincoln 
traveled to Gettysburg to help dedicate America's first national 
cemetery, the battlefield was still covered with scars and signs of the 
carnage.
  One soldier recalled, `` . . . all about were traces of the fierce 
conflict. Rifle pits, cut and scarred trees, broken fences, pieces of 
artillery wagons and harness, scraps of blue and gray clothing, bent 
canteens . . . ''
  President Lincoln was not supposed to be the main speaker at this 
dedication. In fact, there was a 2-hour speech given by Edward Everett, 
who was considered one of the great orators of his day. Abraham 
Lincoln's remarks took 2 minutes. They were so brief that when he 
finished, many in the crowd of

[[Page S2172]]

30,000 were not even sure he had spoken. Yet his words continue to 
inspire the world and the Nation today. In 272 words is what it took 
for President Lincoln to explain to a war-weary nation why it must 
continue to fight. He called on the Nation to look up from the 
devastation and division of the war to a higher purpose. He redefined 
the meaning and the value of the continuing struggle: ``that these dead 
shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of 
freedom.''
  He said that the ceremony at Gettysburg was more than the 
consecration of a cemetery; it represented an opportunity and an 
obligation for us, the living, to finish the work of those who had 
fallen there, to ensure that ``this government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.''
  It may have been the greatest speech in American history. Yet, after 
President Lincoln delivered it, there was only polite applause. On his 
trip back to Washington, Lincoln expressed disappointment. He said of 
his address, ``It was a flat failure. I am distressed about it. I ought 
to have prepared it with more care.''
  The Chicago Times was even less charitable. They editorialized and 
said:

       The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he 
     reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the 
     president.

  Edward Everett, the famed orator and former Governor of Massachusetts 
who had been the main speaker at Gettysburg, was one of the first to 
recognize the greatness of Lincoln's words. Within days, he wrote to 
the President, ``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.''
  In June 1865, in his eulogy to the fallen President, the fiery 
abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner called the Gettysburg Address ``a 
monumental act.'' He said President Lincoln had been mistaken when he 
predicted that ``the world will little note, nor long remember what we 
say here.'' The truth, Senator Sumner said, is that ``[t]he world noted 
at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle 
itself was less important than the speech.''
  President Lincoln did not live to see his legacy: a United States of 
America that has endured, a nation so far removed from the hated 
institution of legalized human slavery that today President Lincoln's 
old office in the White House is occupied by our first African-American 
President.
  As we commemorate today the 200th birthday of the man whose 
leadership saved our Union, saved our Nation and created a new birth of 
freedom, let us pledge that we too will dedicate ourselves to 
preserving his legacy and continuing the still-unfinished work for 
America.
  I yield the floor.

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