The Fiery Trial_ Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery - Eric Foner [169]
Peace does not appear so distant as it did…. And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it.37
Lincoln’s public letters proved enormously popular. “No document issued since your inauguration,” wrote a Republican from Philadelphia of the Corning letter, “has done more to satisfy the public mind.” “All the loyal papers” printed the letter and the Loyal Publication Society circulated over half a million copies. A Republican newspaper praised the “penetrating common sense” of the Conkling letter, predicting that its “plain and honest language” would resonate more deeply among northerners than the “rhetorical artifices” of other politicians. The wide circulation of Lincoln’s letters contributed to the stunning reversal of the results of 1862 in the state elections of 1863. These, in effect, amounted to a referendum on the vast changes the country had experienced in the past year. Republicans carried every major statewide race and increased their majority in Congress. In the closely watched governor’s election in Ohio, Vallandigham received only 40 percent of the vote, well below the Democrats’ usual total.38
Two weeks after the Republican triumph, Lincoln traveled by train to Gettysburg to dedicate a military cemetery at the site of the battle in which 8,000 men had lost their lives. This was one of the very few times during his presidency that Lincoln left Washington to deliver a speech. On the day of his address, November 19, 1863, Lincoln had to wait while the featured speaker, the orator Edward Everett, delivered a florid two-hour speech presenting a detailed history of the battle interspersed with references to classical antiquity and political philosophy. Then followed a period in which the crowd of 15,000 stretched their limbs, moved about, and relaxed, followed by an ode performed by the Maryland Musical Association. Finally, his friend Ward Hill Lamon, marshal of the District of Columbia, introduced the president. Lincoln’s remarks took a little over two minutes. His theme was the war’s transcendent significance:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.39
Some observers immediately recognized the genius of