Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America

In his non-fiction book Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America (1992), American author and journalist Garry Wills dissects the 272-word Gettysburg Address delivered to Union soldiers by President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, identifying the ideas and texts that influenced the writing of one of the most famous speeches of all time. For his work on Lincoln at Gettysburg, Wills received the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.

Although it only took Lincoln about three minutes to recite the Gettysburg Address, Wills argues persuasively that in the span of those 180 seconds, America's conception of itself was dramatically redefined. The occasion for the November 19, 1863 speech—billed merely as scheduled "remarks"—was Lincoln's visit to Gettysburg for the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery, where the 3,000 Union soldiers who had died four months earlier at the Battle of Gettysburg were buried. However, in Lincoln's mind, his intent stretched far beyond that of a traditional dedication to fallen soldiers. In Wills's words, Lincoln sought "to clear the infected atmosphere of American history itself, tainted with official sins and inherited guilt."

Invoking the Declaration of Independence, which states, "All men are created equal," Lincoln attempts "to clear the infected atmosphere." America fought the Civil War to ensure equal treatment to all men, regardless of skin color. Wills asserts that Lincoln specifically intended to exalt the Declaration of Independence as America's founding document, rather than the U.S. Constitution because the Constitution accepted slavery as a necessary evil, thus embracing questionable ideals that America needed to rise above. Moreover, by deemphasizing the importance of the Constitution as America's founding document, Lincoln implied that it is malleable and that America—should the Union win the Civil War—could change it to remove the sanction of slavery, bringing the Constitution closer to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence.



In an effort to convey just how radical the Gettysburg Address was at the time, Wills quotes an angry editorial published by the Chicago Times in response to Lincoln's speech: "It was to uphold this constitution, and the Union created by it, that our officers and soldiers gave their lives at Gettysburg. How dare he, then, standing on their graves, misstate the cause for which they died, and libel the statemen[sic] who founded the government? They were men possessing too much self-respect to declare that negroes were their equals, or were entitled to equal privileges."

Nevertheless, the brilliance of the speech, Wills maintains, stretches long past contemporary Civil War era politics surrounding slavery. By reconfiguring America's national imprimatur around the lofty ideals of the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln provided rhetorical fuel for every civil rights movement that would follow in his wake over the past 150 years. Moreover, when supporters of segregation, housing discrimination, or transgender military bans attempt to argue their case today, they are in effect contradicting the core values of America set forth by Lincoln.

As for how Lincoln reached these intellectual heights of rhetoric, Wills points to a number of influences. Chief among them is Pericles's Funeral Oration, a famous speech delivered in Ancient Greece during the Peloponnesian War to honor the soldiers who died in the previous year's fighting. The structure of both speeches is strikingly similar, beginning with a remembrance of ancestors, followed by a renewed commitment to democracy, then an explicit statement honoring the slain soldiers, and ending with a call to the living to continue fighting the battles of the dead.



Wills also places the Gettysburg Address in the context of that most American of nineteenth-century philosophies: Transcendentalism. In short, Transcendentalism encourages optimism, individualism, and self-reliance while embracing the idealism of English and German Romanticism. The speech's emphasis on reaching higher ideals is very much in line with the ideas of major Transcendental figures of the time such as Edward Everett, who delivered his own two-hour speech at the same dedication as Lincoln. While Lincoln's speech is obviously far briefer, Wills writes that it is a mistake to contrast the content of Lincoln and Everett's speeches, for they grew out of the same ideas. Lincoln, however, simply did a better job communicating those ideas.

Finally, Wills examines the rhetorical flourishes, drawing close attention to Lincoln's use of repetition and linked phrases to emphasize his points. One might think that for such a short speech, Lincoln might have done well to avoid using the same words repeatedly. But that misses the point and power of the Gettysburg Address which, for example, uses the word "dedicate" or a variation thereof six times over the course of the remarks. Wills also points out the repetition of phrases like "these dead" and "these honored dead," and the repeated use of the word "conceived" to describe the nation in its infancy, characterizing America as a living, evolving thing that was, nevertheless, established by a discrete act—in this case, the Declaration of Independence.

With Lincoln at Gettysburg, Wills breathes new life into words every American schoolchild has heard dozens of times, reminding us why they mattered so much then and still do today.