A Solemn and Imposing Event .....

... took place on this day in 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln stepped up to the podium, delivered a few appropriate remarks, and set one of the benchmarks for rhetoric in American - and world - history.

Lincoln's speech was part of a ceremony (shown in the photo, at right) to dedicate a new national cemetery at the site of a Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania ... hence, the Gettysburg Address.
A report on the day's activities from an 1863 edition of the New York Times (.pdf file)

"In just over 2 minutes, 10 sentences and 272 words," it's been written, "Lincoln invoked the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence, and redefined the Civil War as a struggle not merely for the Union, but as 'a new birth of freedom' that would bring true equality to all of its citizens, and that would also create a unified nation in which states' rights were no longer dominant."

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.

In general, contremporary response to the address was polite, at best ... though there were individuals - such as Congressman Edward Everett, who also spoke that day - who had some notion of its greatness. That greatness has been borne out over time ... it remains one of the most often-quoted speeched of American history ... 100 years later, Martin Luther King would allude to Lincoln's speech in delivering his own oratorical benchmark, the "I have a Dream" speech ... and the words "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" would find their way into the French Constitution.

Thank you, Mr. Lincoln ... well done, sir ... well done ...