Virginia Memorial, Gettysburg Battlefield

Little Round Top, Gettysburg Battlefield

QotD: "... government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." A. Lincoln

3D print of Lincoln Life Mask

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

In many ways, it seems that our country is yet again in the midst of a great trial. Not as bloody as the Civil War, but as full of partisan rancor, a paralysis of governing one wonder if the government of/by/for the people shall endure, and a time when liberty and freedom are controlled by governmental forces that at times makes Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus (signed into law just months before the Gettysburg Address) pale.

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 battlefield 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 can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not 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.

Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, 1863

"... the last full measure of devotion ..." Lincoln's Gettysburg Address 150 years later in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the annual World Digital Library meeting at the Library of Congress. There was a dinner reception after the meeting held in the Great Hall of he Library.

After dessert, Librarian of Congress James Billington addressed the group. Now it just so happended that the Library was displaying the Nicolay autograph copy of the Gettysburg Address. This is the copy that is believed to be the copy Lincoln read, exactly 150 years ago today.

As he closed his remarks, Dr. Billington recited the Address in sight of Lincoln's copy. Quite a moving performance.






Lincoln's Gettysburg Event (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 battlefield 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 can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not 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