GettysBlog

November 19, 1863

On this date 145 years ago, Abraham Lincoln delivered the speech that has come to be known as the Gettysburg Address.

In recent interviews, President-elect Barack Obama, has stated that one of the things that he is doing in preparation for his presidency is to reread Lincoln's writings. Let us pause on this historic anniversary and read Lincoln's 272 word speech again.

Full text of Cornell's Bancroft Copy of the Gettysburg Address.

Reading of the Gettysburg Address from Ken Burn's film, The Civil War:

We live in historic times. Let us hope that this nation shall now finally have Lincoln's "new birth of freedom."

The Words That Remake America

We have read and discussed Lincoln's words at the various Reading Project events.  We have noted and appreciated his rhetoric and phrasing:  "all men are created equal," "new birth of freedom," and "government of the people, by the people, for the people."  But we have not mentioned the words that have the potential to truly remake America: apathy, indifference, ignorance, and intolerance.

As the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words.

Was it apathy then that kept more students from coming to hear Garry Wills' talk last night? Was it indifference that motivated so many students to leave Barton Hall before the group discussion was over a few weeks ago?  Yes, it was hot in there, but why were these students so uninterested in this discussion?  Especially in an historic election year when these topics and Lincoln's words have resonated in our daily news headlines.

Democracy is participatory. In order to function properly it requires an informed citizenry to educate itself about the issues and problems it faces, and to act on those issues.

Democracy is a privilege, just as a Cornell education is a privilege. Both require you to think.  Both require some effort and hard work.

As we finish with our daily postings to this blog, I hope that our readers will keep Lincoln in mind. Next year we will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth and Cornell will be celebrating his life and accomplishments with a major exhibition in Kroch Library.

I have enjoyed discussing Lincoln with you all. Keep reading. Stay curious. Know better.

[Flickr image of Mount Rushmore by lmbaker3.]

Get Linc'ed at the Tatkon Center

President Skorton will kickoff Cornell's student voter registration drive tomorrow afternoon, September 6, at 4:30 p.m. at the Balch Courtyard Terrace (rain location Carol Tatkon Center Room 3330). He will read the Gettysburg Address and talk about the power of words to change our world.

Check out all of the events happening this month at the Tatkon Center.

Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address, and Race

Lerone Bennett Jr., author, social historian and longtime editor of Ebony magazine, will be the featured speaker for the first Sage Wednesday event of the semester in Sage Chapel, today from 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. 

He will be speaking on "Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address, and Race."

Sage Wednesdays: "Not a worship service, more than a lecture, Sage Wednesdays allows for the expression of a public philosophy and public theology and consideration of the personal pursuit of meaning and purpose."  This event is free and open to the public.

Lincoln and You

Now that we've read the book (or most of it), gathered as a large group in Barton Hall to hear our Cornell scholars' informed opinions, met in small groups to discuss Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address, and turned in our essays, what's left to do?

Several students in my discussion group mentioned that they would be giving their copies of Lincoln at Gettysburg to their fathers to read, noting their parent's interests in Lincoln and Civil War history. Sharing a good book is what the Reading Project is all about.

If you have not already done so, please treat yourself to a visit to Kroch Library this week to see Cornell's copy of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's handwriting, which will be on public display for the rest of this week.

And check out the Reading Project-related exhibits on campus this month.  Reaching For Equality is on display at the Tatkon Center. (It is also available online as an interactive digital guide. Send us your thoughts and comments.)  Downstairs in Olin Library you will find a display, Mapping the Many Paths to the Address, in the Media Center.

Don't forget that our author, Garry Wills, will be here on September 17th to give a talk on the Lincoln Douglas Debates.

Most importantly, on September 6, President Skorton will read the Gettysburg Address in the Balch Courtyard Terrace at 4:30 p.m. to kickoff our campus voter registration drive. If you are 18 and a United States citizen, you need to participate in the democratic process.  You ARE the people that Lincoln is speaking of at the end of his address: "government of the people, by the people, for the people." 

Register and Vote!

The power to "remake" the world?

The old adage that "the pen is mightier than the sword" may be difficult to accept as we observe all the armed conflicts around the globe at the moment.  But you don't need to believe in the superior power of the pen to consider the possibility, as Wills puts it, that words are sometimes necessary "to complete the work of the guns." Yet how is it that words get their power?  To answer this question, if Wills is right, we must delve into the origins of "linguistic might," and we should expect that the more powerful the words in question, the more complex their origins are likely to be.  Wills leads us on a dense and sometimes complicated exploration of the literary, religious, philosophical, and socio-political roots of the Gettysburg Address.  In addition, his own language occasionally requires us to pick up a dictionary.  But if we stick with him, we can come to a deeper understanding of how 272 words helped to bring to completion what the massive death and destruction of the battle of Gettysburg (and indeed the American Civil War as a whole) could not do alone.

Does the power of words have anything to do with the greatness of political leaders?  We may not think so, especially if we believe that the careers of great leaders are best defined by the decisions they make and by actions they take in light of those decisions.  But what if the full measure of some political greatness will escape us until we understand the role that language and rhetoric might play in decision and action?  Wills has been influential in making the case that this is a reasonable assumption to bring to reflection on Lincoln's career and legacy.  But over the course of his career, Wills has extended this approach to discussions of the broader importance of language and its uses in political contexts.  You may find it interesting to look at a May 2008 article entitled "Two Speeches on Race," in which Wills makes some provocative comparisons between presidential candidate Barack Obama's speech on race and one of Lincoln's speeches delivered in the months before he won the presidency.  Whatever you might make of these comparisons, it is important to ask whether Wills's views in Lincoln at Gettysburg might help us reflect on the sources, power, and value of contemporary political language in the broadest sense.

Finally, why should you be interested in Wills's discussion of the Gettysburg Address if you are either not a citizen (naturalized or native) of the United States, or if you are perhaps an American citizen who is impatient with those who fail to focus on questions of global importance?   Well, if Wills is right, the power of Lincoln's words was partly a function of his conviction that America's national purpose was rooted in ideals of equality and democracy that have value for all human beings.  Consider, too, that Lincoln's words influenced the labor movement in nineteenth century Germany and political movements in mid-twentieth century India, and they resonate in the language of twenty-first century defenders of human rights around the globe. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru kept a cast of Lincoln's hand on his desk, along with a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, to remind himself to combine Gandhi's compassion with Lincoln's capacity for strength and unity.  A 2007 conference on Lincoln focused on his relevance as "A Humanitarian as Broad as the World," and an international conference to celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth in 2009 will be entitled "Lincoln Without Borders."   Might this long-standing global interest in Lincoln suggest that his words have the power not only to remake America, but to help remake the world?

During New Student Orientation, on the day before the small group discussions, three distinguished Cornell faculty members will help us understand the power of Lincoln's words:  Professor Edward Baptist of the history department will deliver a talk entitled "A Nation Not Like Any Other Nations," Cornell President Emeritus and Professor of Classics Hunter Rawlings will talk to us about "Lincoln and the Athenian Tradition of State Funeral Orations," and Professor Tad Brennan of the philosophy department will deliver a talk entitled "Any Nation So Conceived."   

This faculty panel discussion will be held from 3:30 to 5:00 on Sunday August 24, 2008 in Barton Hall.  I look forward to seeing you there and then to learning more about your approach to Lincoln in the essays you will submit during the small group discussions on Monday August 25.

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education,  Michele Moody-Adams

150th Anniversary of the Lincoln Douglas Debates

On August 21, 1858 a then relatively unknown Abraham Lincoln first debated Stephen A. Douglas in Ottawa, Illinois during their campaign to become a U.S. senator. Their seven debates that summer and fall have become the gold standard for political debates. See the multimedia slideshow Debating Douglas on the National Stage, 1857-1858 (Requires RealPlayer) to learn more about their historical context and significance. 

You may recall that earlier this year Hillary Clinton challenged Barack Obama to a Lincoln - Douglas style debate during the primary season. I wonder if the American public would have found this interesting or not, since the 1858 debates featured an hour-long presentation by the first speaker (Lincoln and Douglas alternated going first), an hour and a half response by the second candidate, and then a half hour rejoinder by the first speaker. Would you be willing and able to watch a three hour political debate? How would the second-by-second 24 hour news cycle handle this kind of marathon?

Lincoln lost this election, but gained valuable national exposure. Two years later he defeated Douglas and others to become our 16th president. It was during these debates that Lincoln started honing and perfecting the rhetorical skills that we have been reading about this summer.

Our author, Garry Wills, will be speaking about the Lincoln - Douglas Debates when he visits Cornell on September 17th. 

See you all in Barton Hall on Sunday afternoon.

Welcome to Cornell!

Image: Lincoln and Douglas, November 3, 1903. Creator: Jaspard, J. M. Image Source: Chicago Historical Society

The Gettysburg Address Plagiarized?

I came across a delightful op-ed piece on Salon.com from February 2008.  The piece, by Jerome Doolittle, addresses the issue of plagiarism in speech writing.  It was written in response to the claim that Obama plagiarized Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's writings.

I found Doolittle's comments about the origin of words well-stated and his sarcasm directed at political prose hilarious:

"Virtually all writing is plagiarism anyway, whether the writer knows it or not. Very few ideas, except out at the cutting edge of science, have not occurred to somebody before and been written down in one form or other. The only function remaining for the writer is to repeat in today's idiom what has already been written, somewhat differently, for readers in the past. This is particularly true in political prose, which tends to be light on facts and innocent of all but a few childish ideas."

I also found the example of Seward's 1860 speech eloquently repurposed by Abraham Lincoln timely.  It prompted my thinking: were Lincoln's words at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg unique?  We have examined how similar speeches have been spoken since, but what about prior?

Bancroft Copy of the Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln wrote out five copies of the Gettysburg Address in his beautifully clear and legible handwriting. Garry Wills describes each of these manuscripts and traces the changes in their wording--and changes in the meaning of their wording--in Appendix I of our book. What he does not tell you is that the fourth copy of the speech, the Bancroft Copy, is owned by Cornell University.

The historian and statesman George Bancroft had requested a copy of the speech for use in a fund-raising publication to benefit Union soldiers, but the text that Lincoln supplied him was written on both sides of the paper and could not be used to make a lithograph for the printing process. A second request was made and that copy of the speech, now known as the Bliss Copy, resides in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House. 

Bancroft kept the first copy and it remained in his family until his grandson, Cornell University professor Wilder D. Bancroft, sold it in 1929. It was sold again in 1935 to Nicholas H. and Marguerite Lilly Noyes, who presented it to Cornell in 1949.

The Cornell University Library will publicly display the Bancroft Copy of the Gettysburg Address in the Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. between Monday, August 25th and Friday, August 29^th.

See also our online Annotated Gettysburg Address.

[Image: Autograph Letter Signed by Abraham Lincoln to George Bancroft. Washington D.C., Februrary 29, 1864. Cornell University]

"In great deeds, something abides."

These are the words of Joshua Chamberlain, the Union hero who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for the defense of Little Round Top on the second day of fighting at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. His story is featured in the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara and in the film Gettysburg that was based on this book.

It is fitting that we think of him on this anniversary of his deeds. After Gettysburg he went on to become one of the war's most extraordinary soldiers and later the Governor of Maine. But I would like to focus on his other profession today. Prior to the war he had been a professor of Rhetoric at Bowdoin College. (He could read in seven foreign languages: Arabic, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Syriac.) After the war he returned to Bowdoin to teach and to become its president.

In his excellent book, Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg, James McPherson tells of Chamberlain's return to Gettysburg in 1886 to dedicate a monument for his Twentieth Maine regiment. Let us read more of Chamberlain's speech and his rhetoric:

"In great deeds, something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate the ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them...." 

Done for us.

[Image: Little Round Top, 1863. It is from the Library of Congress Selected Civil War Photographs collection.]