Historian Essay

With the first lines of his speech drawing an allegorical reference to Biblical

timeframes, President Lincoln looks to define that it is divine destiny for the

Untied States to move through the tumultuous, painful period that the thousands

of dead soldiers, both from the Confederate and Union sides, and be the stronger

for it. The purpose of his travel to Gettysburg was to dedicate a new cemetery

for the Union soldiers killed during the battle of Gettysburg. He gave the speech

on November 19, 1863 to approximately fifteen to twenty thousand who had

gathered to hear his convocation of the cemetery. Lincoln realized that the

nation must seek a transformation, away from the divisiveness and towards unity,

and he freely calls on a Biblically-based use of time-based terms to connote that

it is indeed divine providence that led to the creation of the United States to begin

with, and that it is the responsibility of all citizens to keep this creation of God

alive. He is in fact calling out all citizens to the responsibility of the "preservation

of freedom and the birth of a new Union" (Lincoln (9).

From this core thought, all other thoughts are based on. The preservation of

however is not as powerful, not as cogent, and not as blunt as when first

cemeteries in the past. The Gettysburg Address is much different than these

not evoke romantic imagery, he instead lays the responsibility for preserving the

other to pursue liberty and the continued support for the Union above all else.

quoting of Jefferson's writings in the Declaration of Independence. There is also

Union and with it, freedom and liberty. Unlike other orators of his day, he odes

vision is achieved. Mr. Lincoln chose to use a terse approach to also make it