On November 19, 1863, President Lincoln gave a famous speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania at the field where the Battle of Gettysburg took place. People had gathered at the battlefield to dedicate part of it to the men who had been killed in battle.
The so-called Gettysburg Address is remembered as one of the best speeches ever given. It was short and simple, only 272 words. The first part of Lincoln’s speech is familiar to most people. It begins: “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.”
Lincoln argued in the Address that the Civil War was a test to see if a nation founded on these principles of equality could survive. He wanted to ensure that the deaths of the soldiers in the war were not in vain, and that the living should continue the unfinished work of saving the Union.
The speech ended with as famous a line as it began: “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
The Gettysburg Address redefined the purpose of the war from simply preserving the Union to ensuring the freedom and equality of ALL people while underscoring the importance of maintaining the democracy on which the nation had been built.