Episode 60 - A New Birth of Freedom

Four and a half months after the Battle of Gettysburg, on November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln dedicated part of the battlefield as the Soldiers' National Cemetery. He spoke for less than two minutes, in 272 words, and gave the most beloved speech in American history. The address pointed back to the Declaration of Independence, named the Civil War as a test of the republic, and charged the living to ensure a new birth of freedom.

Key Takeaways

On November 19, 1863, Lincoln dedicated the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg with a speech of just 272 words, delivered in under two minutes.
Edward Everett, the featured speaker, had spoken for two hours and 13,000 words before Lincoln took the stage. About 15,000 people were in attendance.
Lincoln's opening, "Four score and seven years ago," pointed back to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence, not to 1787 and the Constitution. He framed the nation's founding around the proposition that all men are created equal.
Lincoln called the Civil War a test: whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to that proposition could endure. The Emancipation Proclamation, issued January 1, 1863, had already redefined the war's purpose to include the end of slavery.
The closing charge, "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," tied victory in the war to the survival of self-government itself.
The promise was sealed sixteen months later: Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment on December 6, 1865.

Questions & Answers (FAQ)

Q1: How long was the Gettysburg Address?

272 words. Lincoln delivered it on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery. The speech took less than two minutes. Edward Everett, the featured speaker that day, had spoken for about two hours with 13,000 words before Lincoln rose.

Q2: Why did Lincoln say "four score and seven years ago" instead of pointing back to the Constitution?

Four score and seven equals 87 years. November 1863 minus 87 puts the founding at 1776, the year the Declaration of Independence was signed. Lincoln deliberately did not point back to 1787, the year the Constitution was drafted. By choosing 1776, he framed the founding around the Declaration's claim that all men are created equal. That choice mattered because it cast equality, not constitutional structure, as the proposition the Civil War was testing.

Q3: What did Lincoln mean by "a new birth of freedom"?

Lincoln tied victory in the war to two things at once: defeating the Confederacy, and ending slavery. Ten months earlier, on January 1, 1863, he had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The address argued that the only way the nation could prove the proposition on which it was founded was to restore the Union as one nation, which now meant ending slavery. The "new birth" was the country reborn under that proven proposition.

Q4: Who was Edward Everett and why did he speak first?

Edward Everett was the most famous orator in America at the time, a former senator, governor of Massachusetts, and president of Harvard. The dedication committee invited him as the featured speaker. He spoke for two hours and 13,000 words. Lincoln's role was the dedicatory remarks at the end of the ceremony. The day after, Everett wrote to Lincoln: "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."

Q5: What happened after the Gettysburg Address?

The war continued for nearly a year and a half more. On April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, ending the Confederacy as a fighting force. On December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, abolishing slavery in the United States. Together those two events fulfilled what Lincoln had charged the living to do at Gettysburg.

A Country Founded on Popular Sovereignty

"We hold these truths to be self-evident." So the signers of the Declaration of Independence claimed. Yet what they held to be true was not self-evident to most of the world. Everywhere one looked in 1776, peoples were ruled by monarchs and oligarchs. Before America, there had never been a country founded on popular sovereignty. Given that unprecedented experiment, the stakes were exceptionally high.

Part of America's unique hope was that great leaders might rise from humble beginnings, and great statesmanship take modest form. Such is the case of Abraham Lincoln, the president who led America through her greatest crisis, the Civil War. And such is America's most beloved speech, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Lee's Invasion Ended at Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought in the first three days of July 1863. It was a major turning point of the war, as it ended Robert E. Lee's invasion of the North. Lee returned to Virginia, never to move north across the Potomac again. Four and a half months later, on November 19, part of the Gettysburg Battlefield was dedicated as the Soldiers' National Cemetery.

Edward Everett's Two-Hour Oration

15,000 politicians, soldiers, journalists, and citizens were in attendance that day. The main speaker was a famous orator, Edward Everett. He spoke for about two hours, 13,000 words in total. Lincoln's remarks were scheduled at the end of the entire ceremony. His purpose: to dedicate the land as a memorial cemetery.

272 Words in Less Than Two Minutes

The president spoke for less than two minutes. He used a spartan 272 words. Lincoln wrote the speech mainly in Washington and likely revised it the night before the ceremony while staying at the home of Gettysburg lawyer David Wills.

Four Score and Seven Years Ago: The Founding

He began by remembering the Founding: not the signing and ratification of the Constitution but the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The opening words, "Four score and seven years ago," called to memory 1776, not 1787 or 1788. Then the president identified what the Founding Fathers achieved: they "brought forth . . . a new nation." Not a federation or union of states, but one nation. The nation was conceived in liberty, and dedicated to a singular ideal: "that all men are created equal."

A Proposition That All Men Are Created Equal

The ideal was framed in two defining ways. First, equality is not the handiwork of men or governments. It is the work of the Creator, the God in whose image all humans are created. Second, the ideal, though framed by the Founders as a self-evident truth, was in Lincoln's words a "proposition": an ideal, in other words, that had to be proven.

The Civil War as a Test of the Republic

Why so? The answer lay in the next part of the speech. There, Lincoln shifted to the terrible crisis in which the country found itself: the Civil War. He called it a test, whether a nation conceived in liberty and devoted to universal equality can long endure. At the same time, the crisis was more than war alone. If the Civil War had broken out as secession and as an attempt to restore the Union, it had become a war about what contradicted the proposition on which America was founded.

Eight months earlier, on January 1, 1863, Lincoln had issued the second and final version of his wartime command, the Emancipation Proclamation. By doing so, he reinvigorated the war effort around the great task of ending slavery. Only the restoration of the republic as one nation, which meant not only defeating the Confederacy but ending slavery, could prove America's great proposition.

We Cannot Consecrate This Ground

Lincoln then turned to the dedication of the battlefield as a memorial cemetery. It turned out that there was little to be done. Lincoln declared that "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 Charge to the Living

Here, the president shifted to the final part of his speech. He pointed to the purpose for which the men died and to which the living must now dedicate themselves going forward. The fallen, he said, "gave the last full measure of devotion" to the cause of freedom. So that they would not have died in vain, it fell to the living to complete the great task of proving the proposition on which the nation was conceived: to defeat the Confederacy and to free the slave once and for all.

A New Birth of Freedom

"It is for us the living," Lincoln charged, "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."

Appomattox and the Thirteenth Amendment

On April 9, 1865, Lee's surrender at Appomattox sealed the victory. Just eight months later, on December 6, 1865, the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment sealed the abolition of slavery in America. For the full text of the Gettysburg Address and other primary source documents from the Civil War era, visit the HISTORY250® documents library.