[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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