Now scrolling: The Gettysburg Address

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.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

September Song in the Life of Lincoln


The month of September offered many challenges for Lincoln during the Civil War. On September 2, 1862, Lincoln put McClellan in charge of defending the city of Washington. Putting McClellan in charge of anything was always risky business.

The Battle of South Mountain began on September 14, 1862, as part of the Maryland Campaign, with Antietam well overshadowing it in casualties on September 17, 1862.

Lincoln prepared the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, many months before its signing on January 1, 1863.

One bright spot in the Civil War was the presentation of a Bible by a committee of African American citizens from Baltimore on September 7, 1864, in Washington. The inscription read: "To Abraham Lincoln, President of the United Sates, the Friend of Universal Freedom, from the Loyal Colored People of Baltimore, as a token of respect and Gratitude." The donors said "since our incorporation into the American family, we have been true and loyal." This must have been a consoling word to hear, since Baltimore was considered so volatile that the inaugural train would not even stop at the Calvert Street Station in 1861.

Of course, the Lincoln-Douglas debates were held September 15, 1858, and Lincoln advocated the repeal of the Kansas-Nebraska Act on September 2, 1854 in Jacksonville, Illinois. Still interested? No? Just wait 'til October gets here.
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