Gettysburg Address Sesquicentennial

[bfisher]

Tomorrow, Tuesday Nov 19 will be the sesquicentennial of the Gettysburg Address. To mark the anniversary of one of the greatest orations in history, I have been reading The Eloquent President A Portrait of Lincoln through His Words by Ronald C. White (White also wrote an excellent recent biography of Lincoln - A. Lincoln). In The Eloquent President, White discusses all the significant public statements of Lincoln as President. Only a short chapter (Chap 9) is devoted to the Gettysburg Address, but White puts in in the evolution of Lincol's thoughts and expressions on freedom and government.

Several years ago I read Lincoln's Sword The Presidency and the Power of Words by Douglas L. Wilson, also an excellent book on how Lincoln used oratory as a powerful tool.

[LovesMacs]

One of the titles in my huge TBR pile is something like "Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer". I don't remember the author.

[bfisher]

By Fred Kaplan? Thanks. I've added it to my TBR

Thanks for mentioning this.

To add a little humor this is just under 150 years late, but better late than never.

Retraction for our 1863 editorial calling Gettysburg Address 'silly remarks': Editorial

[bfisher]

Thanks - although the retraction seems a bit tongue-in-cheek ("By today’s words alone, we cannot exalt, we cannot hallow, we cannot venerate this sacred text")

White quotes from the original editorial in the Harrisburg Patriot & Union in his discussion of the reaction to the address : "We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of"

The Times of London also panned the address.