What Did the Gettysburg Address Really Say?

Abraham Lincoln, 1863

The United States of America’s most famous speech, Abraham Lincoln’s November 19, 1863, Gettysburg Address praised the thousands of young men who gave their lives to repel Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North and, according to some, turn the tide of the American Civil War.

Lincoln gave no vacuous speech uttering empty praises for the war’s dead. No, he called for policy. He called for action. He asked the nation to continue the war.

Standing on a platform at the cemetery’s muddy excavation site, Lincoln spoke with surpassing eloquence. American schoolchildren learn his famous phrases:

“Four score and seven years ago.”

“Conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

But let us not miss the point. In this most magnificent of all epideictic speeches, Lincoln called passionately for a controversial and bloody policy: to continue the Civil War until the Union was restored and justice could reclaim the American ethos. The American Civil War’s appalling bloodshed and brutality shocked the nation, as hardly a household anywhere in the North or South had escaped the grief of losing a husband, brother, son, or cousin. Lincoln was not, in 1863, a popular man. 

Today, such vague, almost spiritual, value-laden rhetoric seems strangely unfamiliar. Indeed, in our cynical, technocratic 21st century, we expect to decide policies by nitpicking analysis, statistics, proof, and expert testimony. Lincoln offered none of that. Instead, he discussed values. His central value was simple. Brave men had consecrated Gettysburg’s hillsides with their blood – as they fought for the Union and against the cruel institution of chattel slavery. It was their values, the value of freedom, the value of justice, of equality, of wise and just government, that justified continuing the war.

By this point in his presidency, Lincoln had overcome some of his initial reticence and was hinting more and more boldly about the evils of slavery. Keep in mind that, although cynical southern apologists frequently saw slavery as a positive good, no one with a conscience could possibly believe them. The idea that human beings could be captured, kidnapped, and beaten, to force them to work for nothing, appalls everyone who knows right from wrong. Reasoned argument was not the point. The time for reasoning was over. It was time for justice: that is why Lincoln’s key point, which was so often overlooked when we read this speech, comes down to these arguments:

First, Lincoln, the great sovereign of words, said that actions count more than words:

“The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” [italics added]

Second, he said that the dead, no longer able to fight, implicitly asked us to continue their noble struggle. That is a policy. That is action:

“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…”

Third, and, finally, out of the horrors of war, the nation had an opportunity – a God-given chance – to reform itself, to regain union according to justice:

“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.”

Government “of the people, by the people, for the people” was no empty phrase. Wise, just government never appears by accident. According to Lincoln, only after the United States pursued its bitter conflict and paid the horrible price for the wickedness of slavery, at which he hinted in this momentous speech – then, and only then could we have government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

From values, we get policies. From suffering, we learn terrible lessons. From justice, we hope to reconcile.

Sadly, according to what I read in the news, that lesson has still not been fully learned. There can be, however, no greater lesson for a president to teach. And this, my dear readers, is why Abraham Lincoln was our greatest president. 

by William D. Harpine

Prince Harry Talked about Sacrifice and Freedom at the 2018 Invictus Games

Abraham Lincoln and the Definition of “Liberty:” A Lesson for Our Time

Copyright © 2024 by William D. Harpine

____________________________________

This remarkable picture is the only known photograph of Lincoln at Gettysburg. It appears to have been exposed some time before his speech. Lincoln's head is in the marked red box. 

Interestingly, Lincoln's friend Edward Everett was the day's featured speaker, and Lincoln was invited as an afterthought. 

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner, 1863, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Lincoln at Gettysburg, unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Richard Nixon's Checkers Speech: The First Step in American Political Cynicism

Richard Nixon, Congressional Portrait

No doubt, the recent electoral success of a convicted felon leaves some people distressed. But take heart. Donald Trump is not the first crooked, worthless, slimy, amoral candidate to achieve political prominence, nor will he be the last. Today, let us look at Richard Nixon’s infamous 1952 Checkers speech. Nixon was then Republican candidate for the vice-presidency of the United States.

In this speech, Nixon rerouted accusations of political corruption by muddying the issue and changing the topic. Facing political disaster, Nixon did what modern politicians now routinely do: he acquired airtime. His on-the-air speech obscured the scandal and digressed from the issues. Not only did he talk the nation into excusing his dubious behavior, but Nixon convinced voters to admire his actions and, ultimately, to elect him to the vice presidency. Let’s look at the scandal, examine Nixon’s mostly irrelevant defense, and, finally, reflect on how neither Nixon nor the nation learned a lesson

The Scandal

During the 1952 campaign, Nixon accepted an $18,000 political contribution to be used as a campaign slush fund. Today, of course, such a pathetically small contribution would make no one blink. In 1952, campaign contributions were rarely regulated, reported, or publicly audited. Nixon’s political opponents jumped to accuse him of graft and influence-peddling. In 1952, $18,000 would amount to about $214,000 today. That would still seem trivial by today’s standards. 

As we all know, no one worries about those kinds of things today. But I digress.
 

Nixon’s Speech

Faced with political doom, Nixon took action. It was time to give a speech. The Republican Party purchased television time. In his televised speech, Nixon skillfully mentioned some accusations, muddied others, and talked about his daughter’s dog. 

Now, it always matters how we phrase the question, and Nixon raised the question adeptly: 

“The question is, was it morally wrong? I say that it was morally wrong -- if any of that $18,000 went to Senator Nixon, for my personal use. I say that it was morally wrong if it was secretly given and secretly handled. 

“And I say that it was morally wrong if any of the contributors got special favors for the contributions that they made.”

That was clever. First, Nixon asserted that he would talk about morality. The audience might think that a wicked man would not discuss morality. Second, Nixon focused first on the lesser charge: the suspicion that he had skimmed money. The more important problem was whether the contributors would receive political favors. But he put that issue last.

Instead, he said: 

“Every penny of it was used to pay for political expenses that I did not think should be charged to the taxpayers of the United States.” [italics added]

Of course, it wasn’t just a matter of what Nixon thought. Using public money for the campaign was illegal, even back then. But I digress again.  

Nixon denied, with little explanation, that the contributors received special consideration. By now, of course, it should be clear that Nixon intended to focus on whether he lifted money for personal expenses. This is a common rhetorical trick: he argued that he was innocent of the lesser transgression. This helped Nixon lead his audience to assume that he did not commit the greater offense.

Nixon pointlessly explained how Senate offices are financed:

 “Let me tell you in just a word how a Senate office operates. First of all, the Senator gets $15,000 a year in salary. He gets enough money to pay for one trip a year, a round trip, that is, for himself, and his family between his home and Washington, D.C. and then he gets an allowance to handle the people that work in his office to handle his mail.

 “And the allowance for my State of California, is enough to hire 13 people. And let me say, incidentally, that this allowance is not paid to the Senator.”  

Although those specifics made a nice civics lesson, they told the audience nothing about the slush fund. He was digressing!  

Nixon then all but boasted that he was not rich, that his wife is not on the federal payroll, and that his duties prevented him from practicing law. Fine. What about corruption? Well, Nixon’s audience heard nothing more about that. They did, however, learn about an audit. 

An audit? That should settle the question, should it not? Alas, Nixon never actually presented the accountants’ audit. Instead, he quoted his lawyers. And his lawyers said that Nixon had neither violated the law nor received income from the slush fund. Now, common sense would tell you that the auditors’ statement counts more than the lawyers’ opinion. The lawyers were, after all, paid to represent the Republican Party’s interests. What did the auditors actually say, in their own words? The audience never heard!  

Anyway, after rambling about his personal finances and pointing out that his wife did not wear a fur coat, but a “good Republican cloth coat,” Nixon admitted that he had received one illegal gift from a contributor – a cute dog! 

“It was a little cocker spaniel dog, in a crate that he had sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted, and our little girl Tricia, the six-year-old, named it Checkers.

 “And you know, the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it.”

 Great. Now, Nixon is making his opponents out to be dog-haters. Yikes! And he diverted attention from the slush fund. 

Anyway, the speech worked. After hearing an outpouring of support for Nixon and his dog-loving daughter, Republican presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower decided to stick with Nixon. Nixon went on to serve eight years as vice president. 

Did you notice what Nixon asserted but never proved? He asserted but never proved that his donors received no special favors. Nor did he even promise that he would not grant favors in the future. He gave weak proof that he did not embezzle. But who cares? I mean, his daughter loved the dog.

Did Anyone Learn Anything?

Did anyone learn a lesson? Well, Nixon did learn one lesson: that he could be corrupt and get away with it. If caught red-handed, all he needed to do was find a television studio and give a sappy speech. It worked, didn’t it? 

The American public also had a chance to learn. They learned two things: that their politicians were corrupt, and that they didn’t care. 

And, so, it goes on. The United States went on to elect at least two presidents with suspected organized crime ties (Kennedy and Reagan). We twice elected Donald Trump, who boasted in an infamous sound recording that he sexually abused women.

Anyway, Nixon became president many years later. He moved on to the Watergate scandal, the essence of which was that his campaign staff maintained a huge secret fund that operated outside of the Party’s control. The secret fund financed what his staff called “dirty tricks.” He got away with most of the dirty tricks, until two Washington Post reporters discovered that he had used some of the money to bribe witnesses concerning the break-in at the Watergate office building. Bribery turned out to be illegal. (Technically, it was called obstruction of justice.) Nixon didn’t get away that time. He was impeached and then resigned to escape removal from office. 

George Washington Plunkitt Explained about “Honest Graft”

Jim Thompson, the Anti-Corruption Governor of Illinois: A Rhetorical Obituary

In the short run, the outcome of Watergate was good. A dishonest man was removed from public office. Good. But the Checkers speech had removed the barriers that might have stopped corrupt politicians from pouring their filthy sewage across America’s political landscape. The Checkers speech knocked out the public’s scruples about unscrupulous leaders. We went from Honest Abe to Checkers. Step-by-step, as time went by, the public’s cynicism grew and, today, no level of veniality deters American voters.

By digressing, by proving irrelevant points while slipping around the genuine issues, and by talking about a dog, Nixon bamboozled a nation.

Gentle reader, do not think that this is a uniquely Republican problem. Upcoming, I intend to write about an even filthier speech by an even more horrible man, a man whose foul wickedness puts Nixon and Trump to shame, who happened to be a Democratic politician. Stay tuned!

by William D. Harpine

_________________

Source note: The definitive text of this history-making speech is found on Americanrhetoric.com, a website set up by my late graduate school classmate Martin J. Medhurst. 

Research Note: My analysis is much inspired by Barnet Baskerville, "The Illusion of Proof," Western Speech, 25 (1961): 236-242. Libraries can probably find the article in databases.

Copyright © 2024 by William D. Harpine

Image: Official congressoinal photo, publid domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Don't Expect Same Day Election Results. Sheesh.

Let’s zap out one ridiculous election conspiracy theory. All over social media, conservative posters insist that they need to know the election results – the actual count – on election night. If they do not see results on election night, they say, it is because the Democrats are using the time to manufacture votes.

This is indescribably ludicrous. Unfortunately, the conspiracy theory spreads because news reports and real life are not the same. 

Final, official vote counts have never been available on election night. Not ever.

Florida, which has one of the most polished election systems (they cleaned up after the 2000 hanging chad debacle), needs about three days to count, verify, and tabulate every vote. Inefficient states like Pennsylvania need much longer. That doesn't make them wrong, just slow. We could get 190 million or more votes by tonight. Some of the votes will be placed on electronic voting machines – which still get checked, verified, and tabulated – while mail-in votes take much, much longer because the envelopes need to be checked and opened, and then the ballots must be scanned. It takes time. 

What confuses people is that – often but not always – news networks broadcast statistical projections. Using huge computers, monstrous databases, and sophisticated statistical processes, they can look at incomplete election results and extrapolate who will probably win any given election once all the votes are counted. Those projections are just educated guesses. The networks are usually right, but they are still, basically, guessing. 

Networks do not produce an official count. Network projections are not final results. 

Worse, if an election is very close (and the 2024 presidential election could be stunningly close), and the early results come within the statistics’ margin of error, then the networks wait before they project the results. The closer the election, the longer they delay. That’s just how statistics work. What if the projections beat the statistical margin of error? Guess what! There is still a (small) margin of error! 

So, no one guarantees that projections are right. Statistics are estimates. The networks are very good at estimating, but they are still just estimating.

A tricky factor is that the networks once based their statistical projections on exit polls. However, many voters today vote by mail, and exit polls no longer mean much. Ignore them.  

Earlier Post: Were the Polls Wrong in 2020? And, if so, Why?

So, when you watch the election results, be sure to distinguish between the official election results – which we will not know right away – and the networks’ statistical projection of what they think the results will be once they are all tabulated.

Appearance versus reality. TV networks do not decide the elections. Only state government officials have that right. They will take their time. Sometimes they will face problems. Everything they do has to be checked, witnessed, and double-checked. That takes more time. So, let them do their jobs. Calm down, and do not expect this very close election to be decided right away. Pay no attention to unhinged conspiracy theorists, political operatives, talk radio hosts, podcasters, or Russian bots. Hang tight, take a deep breath, and wait for the facts. Thank you. 

by William D. Harpine

____________

P.S. Yes, we all love conspiracy theories. Shame on us.

Earlier Post: 

Nutty Epstein Conspiracy Theories: Did Hillary Kill Him? Trump? Putin? Jack the Ripper? King Kong? Before We Believe a Conspiracy Theory, We Need Evidence.

P.P.S.: Follow-up. With 99% of the votes counted by the morning of November 6, the day after the election, networks project Trump to win. Still no official count, of course. However, the conspiracy theories will die--only because Republicans no longer need them. 

Copyright 2024 by William D. Harpine

Image: State of Texas!