The Gettysburg Address Summary & Analysis

In the previous two sentences, the word “dedicated” is used in the context of the commitment to democracy.  In this sentence, Lincoln reuses the word to address the purpose of the ceremony and the task of the audience: dedicating the national cemetery to honor the sacrifice of the dead soldiers.  The multiple meanings of “dedicated” in the speech thus far––the dedication of the soldiers and a nation dedicated to democracy––will assist Lincoln later when he calls for the audience’s dedication to the ongoing war.  Not only does Lincoln mention the purpose of the ceremony; he subtly clarifies the purpose of the war itself and offers a subliminal commentary on the speech’s major themes of liberty, freedom, and equality: For Lincoln, freedom comes at a cost, and the continued life of the nation depends upon the sacrifices of the soldiers who died on the land where Lincoln is delivering his address (“…those who here gave their lives, that the nation might live.”).  Lincoln continues his use of the pronoun “we” which highlights the unity he seeks for the divided country, and he refrains from differentiating between the soldiers of the Union and those of the Confederacy.  Rejecting exclusive language that could underscore divisions in the country, Lincoln implicitly recognizes the cemetery as the resting place of American soldiers, both Union and Confederate.

While it might be easy to dismiss this short sentence as insignificant, it carries subtle importance.  Lincoln will go on in the following sentences to seek the audience’s support for the ongoing war, but to do so outright would be sheer propaganda and disrespectful, suggesting that Lincoln’s sole purpose for attending the ceremony is to shift attention away from the dead soldiers to the war and himself.  Prior to his address at Gettysburg, Lincoln had been portrayed in print media as unsympathetic towards the casualties of the war, despite the fact that he would write personal letters to the families who lost loved ones in battle.  While he does need the audience’s support for the war to ensure a Union victory, guaranteeing that the United States and its democratic values can survive, Lincoln does not exploit his invitation to speak for political gain.  Instead, he expresses his esteem for the dead and confirms his support for the national cemetery.

Roughly one-third of the way through the speech, Lincoln begins leading the audience to reconsider the purpose of this ceremony.  While not unsympathetic to the idea, Lincoln is skeptical that any living person can endow spiritual significance to a concrete reality.  How can any ceremony truly give justice to the sacrifices of 51,000 soldiers?  Lincoln’s emphatic sixth sentence of the Gettysburg Address lays the groundwork for his claim that the audience should commit themselves to the underlying reason why these soldiers sacrificed their lives.

Here, Lincoln continues his treatment of themes related to life and death.  Why is it impossible to dedicate the land to the dead soldiers?  Just as the nation’s survival is made possible by the deaths of the soldiers, Lincoln reveals an additional significance of their deaths.  In a reversal that rhetorically undermines the purpose of the ceremony, Lincoln claims that the soldiers, through their sacrifices, have already accomplished this task, and the audience can do nothing else.

Lincoln’s reference to the world returns the audience back to the global implications of the Civil War, which he outlines in the second sentence.  Throughout the speech, Lincoln repeats the word “here,” which continually emphasizes the importance of the land on which the speech is delivered, the land where “brave men” “gave their lives.”  However, “here” carries a special resonance as Lincoln considers not only the reality of this moment and the soldiers’ sacrifices, but its larger significance in world history.

Now that Lincoln has rhetorically overturned the purpose of the ceremony dedicating the National Cemetery, Lincoln continues to shift the focus of the speech away from the dead to the “living” as the subliminal purpose of his speech is revealed––to rouse support for the ongoing Civil War.  By 1863, the war had dragged on for two years, with a number of casualties never before seen in American history and mass destruction throughout the south. Moreover, opposition to the Civil War was far-reaching, from politicians to the general populace, including a series of deadly draft riots in New York City that occurred only a week after the Battle of Gettysburg.  In his address, Lincoln is careful to avoid any unpleasant associations with a widely unpopular war.  For the fourth time, he repeats the word “dedicated” which now extends not only to the country’s democratic ideals and the soldiers who died in battle, but to the members of the audience.  Instead of “war,” he says “unfinished work” and qualifies this work as “nobly advanced” by the soldiers.  This diction lends dignity and prestige to Lincoln’s cause, indicating to the audience that the Civil War and the task of ensuring the survival of democracy are worthy projects.

Lincoln opens his address at Gettysburg by evoking the nation’s past in his reference to the birth of the United States.  The speech’s middle section honors the sacrifices of the soldiers and addresses the importance of the present moment (the dedication of the national cemetery) while also highlighting the ceremony’s limited significance.  In the final sentence, the past and present collide as Lincoln looks beyond the deaths of the soldiers and towards the future: a rebirth of the nation’s founding democratic values. This sentence begins in the same way as the previous sentence (“It is for us the living, rather…”), but with a minor variation (“It is rather for us…”) that maintains just enough emphasis to underscore Lincoln’s message without becoming repetitive. Structurally, the sentence comprises a series of relative clauses that intertwine many of the speech’s core themes.  In the first relative clause, the “honored dead” become the inspiration for the commitment to the Civil War and the war’s significance in the struggle for liberty, equality, and freedom. The second relative clause builds upon the first:  While the audience may not have the power to hallow the ground on which the soldiers gave their lives, they do have the power to ensure that their deaths have meaning, a claim that signals Lincoln’s implicit encouragement for the audience to support the war. In the penultimate clause, Lincoln transitions from the present into the future with the image of birth that harkens back to the opening sentence.  Here, Lincoln asserts that despite what seems like an impending death, the nation will not only survive but be reborn––unified and committed to the principle that all men, including the enslaved persons whose humanity is being championed in the present war, are created equal.  The last clause contains one of the most quoted phrases in American culture––“a government of the people, by the people, for the people”––which serves as a shorthand definition for the meaning of democracy.  Lincoln omits the traditional conjunction that appears before the final item in a series, giving the phrase perfect balance, and the repetition of “the people” reminds the audience of their role as the stewards of democracy.  The final words of Lincoln’s address envision that a successful end to the Civil War will ensure that democracy will live on, not only in the nation of the United States, but the entire world.  Thus, Lincoln’s final sentence completes the speech’s cycles of past, present, and future as well as birth, death, and rebirth.