The theme of the Gettysburg Address was not entirely new. “Must a
government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its
people,” Lincoln had once asked, “or too weak to maintain its own
existence?” Speaking of war aims, he said, “We shall nobly save, or
meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” When he referred at
Gettysburg to “the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus
far so nobly advanced,” he had in mind the high purpose of the
preservation of the Union and the welfare of all the people. More than a
year after Gettysburg, Lincoln in his Second Inaugural address uttered
words which might very well be considered a companion sentiment to those
expressed at Gettysburg: “With malice toward none; with charity for all;
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.” This
profession of faith came from the heart of a man of humility who sought
then, as he did throughout the war, to assuage suffering and anxiety
everywhere.
Rather than accept the address as a few brief notes hastily prepared on
the route to Gettysburg (an assumption which has long gained much public
acceptance), it should be regarded as a pronouncement of the high
purpose dominant in Lincoln’s thinking throughout the war. Habitually
cautious of words in public address, spoken or written, it is not likely
that the President, on such an occasion, failed to give careful thought
to the words which he would speak. After receiving the belated
invitation on November 2, he yet had ample time to prepare for the
occasion, and the well-known correspondent Noah Brooks stated that
several days before the dedication Lincoln told him in Washington that
his address would be “short, short, short” and that it was “written, but
not finished.”