The Gettysburg Ad d r ess

The Emancipation Proclamation

By the summer o f 1862 President Lincoln realized

that the North would only win the wa r if he could

arouse more enthusiasm fo r its cause. On Scprcmbcr

22 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation

wi th this aim. T his Proclamation declared th at

from j anua ry 1, lR63, all slaves were to be mad e

free-but on ly if they lived in areas that were part

of the Confederacy. The Proclamation change d

the purpose o f the wa r, From a str uggle to

presern ' rhc Union, it became a str uggle both to

preserve the Union and to abolis h slavery.

At the tim e no t eVl'ryolll' was impressed by

Lincoln's action. A British leade r. Lord Palmerston

, said th nr all Lincoln had done was " to abolish

slavery where he was without power to do so,

while pro tecting it where he had the power to

destroy it. " Palmcrsron was right. But after the

Emancipation Proclamation everyolle knew rhar it

was only a marrcr of time now before slavery was

ended everywhere in the United Stat es,

Gettysbur g in Pennsylvania IS remembered for

two things. The first is the battle that was fought

there in July 186.3. The seco nd is th e Gett ysburg

address. a spee ch that Ab raham Lincoln made

there a few months later.

O n November 19. 1&J3, Lincoln traveled to

Gett ysburg ro dedicate- part of the battlefield as a

national war cemetery. T his IS part o f what he said

when he did so:

"Fou rscore and seven years ago our fat her-s

broug ht forth on this cont inent a new nat ion,

dedicated ro rhe proposirion rh:u all men arc

created equa l. Now we are engaged in a great civ il

war, testing whether that nation can long end ure.

We arc me t on a grea t battlefi eld of th ai war. We

have come to dedicate J po rtion of that field as a

final resting-place tor those who here gave their

lives, that that natio n might live. But III a larger

sense, we can not dedi cate, we can not consecrate

th is ground. T he bra n ' men. livin g: and dead. who

struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our

poor power. The world will little not e. no r lon g

remember. what we say here. but it can never

fo rget what they did here. It is lor us the living to

resolve that th ese dead sha ll not have di ed in vain;

tlmr this nation, under God, shall have a new birth

c f frccdom: and tha t govern ment of rhc people. by

the people, fo r the people. sha ll not perish from

rhi.. earth. "

Lincoln' s speech at Gettysburg became even more

famous than the battle. At the time it was seen as

a statement of what th e Nort h W;IS figh ting fo r.

III later years it came to be seen as a movmg

expression of faith in the basic pr inci ples of

democratic governme nt.

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