Gettysburg Also To Exhort The Listeners

Abraham Lincoln's carefully crafted address secondary to other presentations that day came to be regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history In just over two minutes 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.


Lincoln examined the founding principles of the United States in the context of the Civil War and used the ceremony at Gettysburg as an opportunity not only to consecrate the grounds of a cemetery but also to exhort the listeners to ensure the survival of America's representative democracy that the government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth.



Interring the dead in a dignified and orderly manner became a high priority for the few thousand residents of Gettysburg Initially the town planned to buy land for a cemetery and then ask the families of the dead to pay for their burial However David Wills a wealthy 32 year old attorney objected to this idea and wrote to the Governor of Pennsylvania Andrew Gregg Curtin suggesting instead a National Cemetery to be funded by the states.