GettysBlog

Garry Wills at Cornell

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 150 Years Later
September 17, 2008 - 7:00PM to 8:00PM
Garry Wills, historian and author of Lincoln at Gettysburg will be speaking on the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.

LOCATION: Statler Auditorium
SPEAKER: Garry Wills
ADMISSION: Open to Public, Alumni, Students, Faculty, and Staff.
ADMISSION INFO: Free, but tickets are required. Tickets may be picked up at the Willard Straight Ticket Office beginning Sept. 11.

Sponsored by University Lectures Committee and the Office of the Provost.

For those of you wanting to read more of Garry Wills' writing, here are a few recent New York Times Op Ed pieces and his essays from the New York Review of Books:

McCain's McGovern Moment, September 3, 2008                                                         

Two Presidents Are Worse Than One, January 26, 2008

Garry Wills at The New York Review of Books

Come hear about the most famous debates in American political history.

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

Creating Equality

Flying home yesterday I spotted these t-shirts in the Denver airport. This city will be hosting the Democratic National Convention later this month and you can feel the politics in the hot, dry air out there. No, this is not a political endorsement. I want to focus on the words printed on these shirts. They come from Barack Obama's speech on race from March 18, 2008:

"This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.”

Obviously, Obama is referring to the opening lines of the U.S. Constitution:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

But Obama is also referring to the unfinished work Lincoln presents in the Gettysburg Address, which is itself referring back to the self-evident truths of the American Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal." As Garry Wills states on page 146-147 of our book:

"The Gettysburg Address has become an authoritative expression of the American spirit--as authoritative as the Declaration of Independence itself, and perhaps even more influential, since it determines how we read the Declaration. For most people now, the Declaration means what Lincoln told us it means, as a way of correcting the Constitution itself without overthrowing it."

These four texts--the Declaration, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, and the Obama speech--track the progress that we have made in turning rhetoric into action, and in creating a nation where all people are indeed created equal.

We also need to remember that that other senator from Illinois, Mr. Abraham Lincoln, was about to launch his campaign for re-election when he gave his speech in Gettysburg.  I wonder if there were any t-shirts for sale at the train station there?

Who is Edward Everett?

Although my own remarks at the dedication of Soldier's National Cemetery in Gettysburg, PA were a mere three minutes long, my contemporary, Edward Everett, played a more prominent role in the dedication ceremony by giving the Oration.  His speech "connected the heroic struggle for freedom in the classical and modern worlds with the valor and sacrifice demonstrated on America's battlefields. He justified the Union cause and predicted that the North and South would eventually reconcile, leading to a restored and stronger Union."  Read the entire oration here.

Everett had an illustrious political career as a US Congressman, Governor of Massachusetts, and Secretary of State for President Millard Fillmore.  He also served as Harvard's president from 1846 to 1849 (although he was rather unpopular with the students; they coined him "Old Granny" in reference to his displeasure over the undisciplined nature of the students).  Read his biography from the Harvard Square Library.

Everett was a gracious colleague.  Following my remarks at Gettysburg, he sent me a quick note praising the "eloquent simplicity and appropriateness" of my words.  View a copy of the letter here as part of the American Treasures at The Library of Congress.

Unfortunately, Everett's words were eclipsed by my remarks on that day of dedication.  However, his gift of oration will never be truly forgotten.