LINCOLN (Vol. 1-7). Theodore Roosevelt
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unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
The brightening prospects of the Union cause quickly produced a better state of feeling at the North. In the fall elections of 1863, every State except New Jersey gave solid majorities on the Republican side, thus strengthening the administration and giving the President welcome assurances of popular approval. He had awaited with special anxiety the returns from Ohio, where the contest was fraught with peculiar significance. The Democrats had chosen for their candidate the notorious peace-at-any-price Vallandigham, against whom the Republicans had placed John Brough of Cleveland. On the night of the election, about ten o'clock, a message clicked on the wires in the telegraph office of the latter city, saying, "Where is John Brough? A. Lincoln." Brough was at hand, and directly the electric voice inquired, "Brough, about what is your majority now?" Brough replied, "Over 30,000." Lincoln requested Brough to remain at the office during the night. A little past midnight the question came again from Lincoln, "Brough, what is your majority by this time?" Brough replied, "Over 50,000." And the question was thus repeated and answered several times, with rapidly increasing majorities, till five o'clock in the morning, when the question came again, "Brough, what is your majority now?" The latter was able to respond, "Over 100,000." As soon as the words could be flashed back over the wire, there came: "Glory to God in the highest. Ohio has saved the Nation. A. Lincoln."
The day after the election in Ohio (October 14, 1863) Lincoln said to Secretary Welles that he had felt more anxiety in regard to the results than he had in 1860 when he was chosen President. He could not have believed four years ago, he said, that one genuine American would or could be induced to vote for such a man as Vallandigham. Yet he had been made the candidate of a large party, and received a vote that is a discredit to the country. Mr. Welles adds: "The President showed a good deal of emotion as he dwelt on this subject."
After the battle of Gettysburg, a portion of the ground on which the engagement was fought was purchased by the State of Pennsylvania for a burial-place for the Union soldiers who were slain in that bloody encounter. The tract included seventeen and a half acres adjoining the town cemetery. It was planned to consecrate the ground with imposing ceremonies, in which the President, accompanied by his Cabinet and a large body of the military, was invited to assist. The day appointed was the 19th of November; and the chief orator selected was Massachusetts' eloquent son, Hon. Edward Everett. Following him it was expected that the President would add some testimonials in honor of the dead.
Lincoln and Everett were representatives of two contrasting phases of American civilization: the one, an outgrowth of the rough pioneer life of the West; the other, the product of the highest culture of the East. They had met for the first time on this memorable day. Everett's oration was a finished literary production. Smooth, euphonious, and elegant, it was delivered with the silvery tones and the graceful gestures of a trained and consummate speaker. When he had finished, and the applause that greeted him had died away, the multitude called vociferously for an address from Lincoln. With an unconscious air, the President came forward at the call, put his spectacles on his nose, and read, in a quiet voice which gradually warmed with feeling, while his careworn face became radiant with the light of genuine emotion, the following brief address:
Fourscore 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 of 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot 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 carried on. 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.
The simple and sublime words of this short address shook the hearts of the listeners, and before the first sentence was ended they were under the spell of a mighty magician. They stood hushed, awed, and melted, as the speaker enforced the solemn lesson of the hour, and brought home to them, in plain unvarnished terms, the duty which remained for them to do—to finish the work which the dead around them had given their lives to carry on. It was one of the briefest of the many speeches with which Lincoln had swayed the impulses and opinions of crowds of his fellow-men, but it is the one which will be remembered above all others as hallowed by the truest and loftiest inspiration. As the final sentence ended, amid the tears and sobs and cheers of the excited throng, the President turned to Mr. Everett, and, grasping his hand, exclaimed with sincerity, "I congratulate you on your success." Mr. Everett responded in the fervor of his emotion, "Ah, Mr. President, how gladly would I exchange all my hundred pages to have been the author of your twenty lines!"
Of all Lincoln's public utterances, this is unquestionably the most remarkable. The oration, brief and unpretending as it is, will remain a classic of the English language. "The Westminster Review," one of the foremost of the great English quarterlies, said of it: "It has but one equal, in that pronounced upon those who fell in the first year of the Peloponnesian War; and in one respect it is superior to that great speech. It is not only more natural, fuller of feeling, more touching and pathetic, but we know with absolute certainty that it was really delivered. Nature here takes precedence of art—even though it be the art of Thucydides."
"An illustration of the difference between oratory and inspiration" is Mr. John Bigelow's happy characterization of the Gettysburg address. "It was," he adds, "one of the most momentous incidents in the history of the Civil War. It may be doubted whether anything had then, or has since, been said of that national strife conceived upon a higher and wiser spiritual plane.... It is perhaps, on the whole, the most enduring bit of eloquence that has ever been uttered on this continent; and yet one finds in it none of the tricks of the forum or the stage, nor any trace of the learning of the scholar, nor the need of it."
Major Harry T. Lee, who was himself a participant in the battle of Gettysburg and occupied a seat on the platform at the dedication, says that the people listened with marked attention through the two hours of Everett's noble and scholarly oration; but that when Lincoln came forward, and in a voice burdened with emotion uttered his simple and touching eulogy on "the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here," there was scarcely a dry eye in the whole vast audience.
Mr. John Russell Young, afterwards U.S. Minister to China, was present at the Gettysburg dedication, and says: "I sat behind Mr. Lincoln while Mr. Everett delivered his oration. I remember the great orator had a way of raising and dropping his handkerchief as he spoke. He spoke for two hours, and was very impressive, with his white hair and venerable figure. He was a great orator, but it was like a bit of Greek sculpture—beautiful, but cold as ice. It was perfect art, but without feeling. The art and beauty of it captured your imagination and judgment. Mr. Everett went over the campaign with resonant, clear, splendid rhetoric. There was not a word or a sentence or a thought that could be corrected. You felt that every gesture had been carefully studied out beforehand. It was like a great actor playing a great part.... Mr. Lincoln rose, walked to the edge of the platform, took out his glasses, and put them on. He was awkward. He bowed to the assemblage in his homely manner, and took out of his coat pocket a page of foolscap. In front of Mr. Lincoln was a photographer with his camera, endeavoring to take a picture of the scene. We all supposed that Mr. Lincoln would make rather a long speech—a half-hour at least. He took the single sheet of foolscap, held it almost to his nose, and in his high tenor voice, without the least attempt at effect, delivered that most extraordinary