THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE GETTYSBURG SPEECH.
Among the many historic scenes in which President Lincoln was an actor
there is not one, perhaps, where a single incident gave rise to
speculations so groundless and guesses so wide of the truth as his
justly celebrated Gettysburg speech.[H] Since his death there has been
an enormous expenditure, not to say a very great waste, of literary
talent on that extraordinary address, as there has been on almost
everything else he did, or was supposed to have done, from his boyhood
until the moment of his assassination. That reporters, critics,
chroniclers, eulogists, flatterers, and biographers have not only failed
to give a true account of that famous speech, but that they have
subjected Mr. Lincoln's memory to hurtful misrepresentation, it is the
purpose of this chapter to show.
[H] Fourscore 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 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 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.
It was my good fortune to have known Mr. Lincoln long and well,--so long
and so intimately that as the shadows lengthen and the years recede I am
more and more impressed by the rugged grandeur and nobility of his
character, his strength of intellect, and his singular purity of heart.
Surely I am the last man on earth to say or do aught in derogation of
his matchless worth, or to tarnish the fair fame of him who was, during
eighteen of the most eventful years of my life, a constant, considerate,
and never-failing friend.
The world has long since conceded that Abraham Lincoln was great in all
the elements that go to make up human greatness. He had a stamp of
originality entirely his own. With his unique individuality and his
commanding intellect--at once strong, sagacious, and profoundly acute
and critical--were associated a mental integrity and a moral purpose as
firm as granite, a thorough knowledge of himself, and a modesty that
scorned not only self-laudation but eulogy by others for fame or
achievements not his own. An act accomplished by him, either in his
character of a citizen or as a public servant, he regarded more as a
duty discharged than as an achievement of which to be proud. He was
charitable to a fault; and yet no man ever discriminated more narrowly
in forming a judgment concerning the character, the acts, and the
motives of other men, or had a keener appreciation of merit or demerit
in others. With his characteristic honesty and simplicity we may well
suppose, that, were he alive to-day, he would feel under little
obligation to the swarm of fulsome eulogists who have made up a large
part of the current chronicles of his life and public conduct by
ascribing to him ornamental virtues which he never possessed, and
motives, purposes, and achievements which he would promptly disown if he
could now speak for himself.
Discriminating observers and students of history have not failed to note
the fact that the ceremony of Mr. Lincoln's apotheosis was not only
planned but executed by men who were unfriendly to him while he lived,
and that the deification took place with showy magnificence some time
after the great man's lips were sealed in death. Men who had exhausted
the resources of their skill and ingenuity in venomous detraction of the
living Lincoln, especially during the last years of his life, were the
first, when the assassin's bullet had closed the career of the
great-hearted statesman, to undertake the self-imposed task of guarding
his memory,--not as a human being endowed with a mighty intellect and
extraordinary virtues, but as a god. In fact, the tragic death of Mr.
Lincoln brought a more fearful panic to his former traducers than to
his friends. The latter's legacy was deep sorrow and mourning; the
former were left to the humiliating necessity of a change of base to
place themselves _en rapport_ with the millions who mourned the loss of
their greatest patriot and statesman.
If there was one form of flattery more offensive to the noble and manly
pride of Mr. Lincoln than all others, it was that in which credit was
given him for a meritorious deed done by some other man, or which
ascribed to him some sentimental or saintly virtue that he knew he did
not possess. In the same spirit he rejected all commendations or
flattering compliments touching anything which he had written or spoken,
when, in his own judgment, there was nothing especially remarkable in
the speech or the composition referred to. Although superior, I
readily concede, to any other man I have ever known, Mr. Lincoln
was yet thoroughly human; and with his exact knowledge of his own
character,--its weakness and its strength,--he once said to me, speaking
of what historians and biographers might say of him, "Speak of me as I
am; nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." He had a clear
perception of the value of that history which is truthful; and he
believed that hosannas sung to the memory of the greatest of men, as if
they were demi-gods, are hurtful to their fame.
A day or two before the dedication of the National Cemetery at
Gettysburg, Mr. Lincoln told me that he would be expected to make a
speech on the occasion; that he was extremely busy, and had no time for
preparation; and that he greatly feared he would not be able to acquit
himself with credit, much less to fill the measure of public
expectation. From his hat (the usual receptacle for his private notes
and memoranda) he drew a sheet of foolscap, one side of which was
closely written with what he informed me was a memorandum of his
intended address. This he read to me, first remarking that it was not at
all satisfactory to him. It proved to be in substance, if not in exact
words, what was afterwards printed as his famous Gettysburg speech.
After its delivery on the day of commemoration, he expressed deep regret
that he had not prepared it with greater care. He said to me on the
stand, immediately after concluding the speech: "Lamon, that speech
won't _scour_! It is a flat failure, and the people are disappointed."
(The word "scour" he often used in expressing his positive conviction
that a thing lacked merit, or would not stand the test of close
criticism or the wear of time.) He seemed deeply concerned about what
the people might think of his address; more deeply, in fact, than I had
ever seen him on any public occasion. His frank and regretful
condemnation of his effort, and more especially his manner of expressing
that regret, struck me as somewhat remarkable; and my own impression was
deepened by the fact that the orator of the day, Mr. Everett, and
Secretary Seward both coincided with Mr. Lincoln in his unfavorable view
of its merits.
The occasion was solemn, impressive, and grandly historic. The people,
it is true, stood apparently spell-bound; and the vast throng was hushed
and awed into profound silence while Mr. Lincoln delivered his brief
speech. But it seemed to him that this silence and attention to his
words arose more from the solemnity of the ceremonies and the awful
scenes which gave rise to them, than from anything he had said. He
believed that the speech was a failure. He thought so at the time, and
he never referred to it afterwards, in conversation with me, without
some expression of unqualified regret that he had not made the speech
better in every way.
On the platform from which Mr. Lincoln delivered his address, and only a
moment after it was concluded, Mr. Seward turned to Mr. Everett and
asked him what he thought of the President's speech. Mr. Everett
replied, "It is not what I expected from him. I am disappointed." Then
in his turn Mr. Everett asked, "What do you think of it, Mr. Seward?"
The response was, "He has made a failure, and I am sorry for it. His
speech is not equal to him." Mr. Seward then turned to me and asked,
"Mr. Marshal, what do you think of it?" I answered, "I am sorry to say
that it does not impress me as one of his great speeches."
In the face of these facts it has been repeatedly published that this
speech was received by the audience with loud demonstrations of
approval; that "amid the tears, sobs, and cheers it produced in the
excited throng, the orator of the day, Mr. Everett, turned to Mr.
Lincoln, grasped his hand and exclaimed, 'I congratulate you on your
success!' adding in a transport of heated enthusiasm, 'Ah, Mr.
President, how gladly would I give my hundred pages to be the author of
your twenty lines!'" Nothing of the kind occurred. It is a slander on
Mr. Everett, an injustice to Mr. Lincoln, and a falsification of
history. Mr. Everett could not have used the words attributed to him, in
the face of his own condemnation of the speech uttered a moment before,
without subjecting himself to the charge of being a toady and a
hypocrite; and he was neither the one nor the other.
As a matter of fact, the silence during the delivery of the speech, and
the lack of hearty demonstrations of approval immediately after its
close, were taken by Mr. Lincoln as certain proof that it was not well
received. In that opinion we all shared. If any person then present saw,
or thought he saw, the marvellous beauties of that wonderful speech, as
intelligent men in all lands now see and acknowledge them, his
superabundant caution closed his lips and stayed his pen. Mr. Lincoln
said to me after our return to Washington, "I tell you, Hill, that
speech fell on the audience like a wet blanket. I am distressed about
it. I ought to have prepared it with more care." Such continued to be
his opinion of that most wonderful of all his platform addresses up to
the time of his death.
I state it as a fact, and without fear of contradiction, that this
famous Gettysburg speech was not regarded by the audience to whom it
was addressed, or by the press and people of the United States, as a
production of extraordinary merit, nor was it commented on as such until
after the death of its author. Those who look thoughtfully into the
history of the matter must own that Mr. Lincoln was, on that occasion,
"wiser than he knew." He was wiser than his audience, wiser than the
great scholars and orators who were associated with him in the events of
that solemn day. He had unconsciously risen to a height above the level
of even the "cultured thought" of that period.[6]
[6] Page 174, line 11, after the word "period."
The words of Clark E. Carr are entitled to credit, for no one present
had more at heart than he the success of these ceremonies--he being one
of the original commissioners comprising the board that purchased this,
the first ground set apart for a national cemetery for our soldiers. He
was on the platform from which Mr. Lincoln spoke. He says in his
"Lincoln at Gettysburg" that, "Before the great multitude of people
could prepare themselves to listen intelligently, before their thoughts
had become sufficiently centred upon the speaker to take up his line of
thought and follow him, he had finished and returned to his seat. So
short a time [only about three minutes] was Mr. Lincoln before them that
the people could scarcely believe their eyes when he disappeared from
their view. They could not possibly in so short a time mentally grasp
the ideas that were conveyed. Many persons said to me that they would
have supposed that on such a great occasion the President would have
made a speech. Every one thought he made only a very few 'dedicatory
remarks.' Mr. Carr further says that the general impression was that the
remarks consisted of 'a dozen commonplace sentences scarcely one of
which contained anything new, anything that when stated was not
self-evident.'"
The marvellous perfection, the intrinsic excellence of the Gettysburg
speech as a masterpiece of English composition, seem to have escaped the
scrutiny of even the most scholarly critics of that day, on this side of
the Atlantic. That discovery was made, it must be regretfully owned, by
distinguished writers on the other side. The London "Spectator," the
"Saturday Review," the "Edinburgh Review," and some other European
journals were the first to discover, or at least to proclaim, the
classical merits of the Gettysburg speech. It was then that we began to
realize that it was indeed a masterpiece; and it dawned upon many minds
that we had entertained an angel unawares, who had left us
unappreciated. In no country and in no age of the world has the death of
any man caused an outpouring of sorrow so universal. Every nation of the
earth felt and expressed its sense of the loss to progressive
civilization and popular government. In his life and death, thoughtful
men in all lands found an inspiring theme. England's greatest thinker,
John Stuart Mill, pronounced Abraham Lincoln to be "the greatest
citizen, who has afforded a noble example of the qualities befitting the
first magistrate of a free people." The London "Times" declared that the
news of his death would be received throughout Europe "with sorrow as
sincere and profound as it awoke in the United States," and that
"Englishmen had learned to respect a man who showed the best
characteristics of their race." The London "Spectator" spoke of him as
"certainly the best, if not the ablest man ruling over any country in
the civilized world."
For using in his Gettysburg speech the celebrated phrase, "the
government of the people, by the people, and for the people," Mr.
Lincoln has been subjected to the most brutal criticism as well as to
the most groundless flattery. Some have been base enough to insinuate
against that great and sincere man that he was guilty of the crime of
wilful plagiarism; others have ascribed to him the honor of originating
the phrase entire. There is injustice to him in either view of the case.
I personally know that Mr. Lincoln made no pretence of originality in
the matter; nor was he, on the other hand, conscious of having
appropriated the thought, or even the exact words, of any other man. If
he is subject to the charge of plagiarism, so is the great Webster, who
used substantially the same phrase in his celebrated reply to Hayne.
Both men may have acquired the peculiar form of expression (the thought
itself being as old as the republican idea of government) by the
process known as unconscious appropriation. Certain it is that neither
Lincoln nor Webster originated the phrase. Let us see how the case
stands.
In an address before the New England Antislavery Convention in Boston,
May 29, 1850, Theodore Parker defined Democracy as "a government of _all
the people, by all the people, for all the people_, of course," which
language is identical with that employed by Mr. Lincoln in his
Gettysburg speech. Substantially the same phrase was used by Judge Joel
Parker in the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in 1853. A
distinguished diplomat has acquainted me with the singular fact that
almost the identical phrase employed by Mr. Lincoln was used in another
language by a person whose existence even was not probably known to Mr.
Webster, the Parkers, or to Mr. Lincoln. On the thirty-first page of a
work entitled "Geschichte der Schweizerischen Regeneration von 1830 bis
1848, von P. Feddersen," appears an account of a public meeting held at
Olten, Switzerland, in May, 1830. On that occasion a speaker named
Schinz used the following language, as translated by my friend just
referred to: "All the governments of Switzerland [referring to the
cantons] must acknowledge that they are simply from _all the people, by
all the people, and for all the people_."
These extracts are enough to show that no American statesman or writer
can lay claim to the origin or authorship of the phrase in question. No
friend of Mr. Lincoln will pretend that it is the coinage of his
fertile brain; nor will any fair-minded man censure him for using it as
he did in his Gettysburg speech. As a phrase of singular compactness and
force, it was employed by him, legitimately and properly, as a fitting
conclusion to an address which the judgment of both hemispheres has
declared will live as a model of classic oratory while free government
shall continue to be known and revered among men.
"The world will little note, | "The speech will live when
nor long remember, what we | the memory of the battle will
say here; but it can never | be lost or only remembered
forget what they did here." | because of the speech."
LINCOLN. SUMNER.