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Four Score

And I don’t mean four square the app or the playground game, people!  I’m talking “four score and seven years ago,”  the opening line of the Gettysburg Address.   The text, compliments of Britannica reads,

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 battle-field 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.

This speech was delivered on this day, November 19, 1863. Mr. Lincoln’s was not the only speech of the day. The occasion was to consecrate the ground as a national cemetery.  Using the Proquest Civil War Era and searching gettysburg and consecration you can read all about the events of the day.  An oration delivered on the battlefield of Gettysburg, (November 19, 1863) at the consecration of the cemetery prepared for the internment of the remains of those who fell in the battles of July 1st, 2d, and 3d, 1863 : to which is added interesting reports of the dedication ceremonies, descriptions of the battlefield, incidents of the battles, etc. / by Edward Everett is just one of many finds. While Mr. Everett’s pamphlet lacks a pithy title, it is a fascinating document that includes much more than just the speech.  Mr. Everett is nowhere near as eloquent as Mr. Lincoln – and far more long-winded.  His speech went on for almost 2 hours.  At least he had enough self-awareness to say,

“I should be glad,” Everett graciously told the president afterward, “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.”

Find out more about the chatty Mr. Everett from the American National Biography, (which is where I got the above quote).

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