CHAPTER V

THE “GETTYSBURG ADDRESS”

DURING the presidential period Lincoln y made no political speeches and he declined most of the invitations to deliver addresses, on the plea of pressing public business. The only speeches after March 4, 1861, are the responses to serenades, of which there is a goodly number and which will be given special attention elsewhere, and one occasional speech, the

"Gettysburg Address." For our purposes

this is a fortunate circumstance, for it enables us to devote more time to the study of this address than would otherwise be possible. The “Gettysburg Address" presents many interesting problems and has given rise to much mis understanding and misrepresentation. Dur ing the past twelve years it has been investigated by many students and the main facts

in connection with it are now fairly well established. Unfortunately, however, here as elsewhere error has been very tenacious and a brief statement of the real facts may still be of value.

It has long been known that the “Gettysburg Address" is preserved in several different versions, three of these being in Lincoln's own handwriting. Before leaving Washington Lincoln made two copies of the address, now known as the Hay and the Nicolay MS. respectively, and after reaching Gettysburg he made some slight changes in the Nicolay copy, which he held in his left hand, but apparently did not read from, when he delivered it. Some time after returning to Washington he made a third copy, differing slightly from the other two copies. This third copy was made for facsimile reproduction for the benefit of the Baltimore Sanitary Fair. As he had written on both sides of the paper he made another copy, giving the first one to Mr. George Bancroft. Still another copy was made for Mr.

Everett to be bound with a copy of Everett's oration. The later version was evidently influenced by the report of the Associated Press, which seems to have reproduced the slight changes from the MS. made by Lincoln in the delivery.

Fourteen years ago the late Major Lambert, the great collector of Lincolniana, and I made careful studies of the "Gettysburg Address," with special reference to its form and its immediate reception by the public, and these were followed, in 1913, by a similar investigation by Mr. Isaac Markens, entitled, Lincoln's Masterpiece. It is an interesting fact that the first two studies, each made without knowledge of the other and based largely upon different newspaper material, reached practically the same conclusions and that these conclusions have been corroborated by the later study.

It was assumed by earlier writers on Lincoln who paid any attention to the matter that the address had appeared only in the

slightly differing versions of Lincoln's MS., the report of the Associated Press and the report of the Massachusetts commission. An examination of the files of a number of newspapers from different parts of the country, however, shows not only several slight deviations from the original, due to carelessness of either telegraph operators or compositors, but also several wholly different reports. The most remarkable of these incorrect renderings was found in the Daily Wisconsin, of Milwaukee, for November 21, 1863, and the State Journal, of Springfield, Illinois, for November 23. It was evidently furnished by the same correspondent and it must have appeared in a number of other newspapers, although these are the only instances that have been noted. Only one sentence follows any one of the four other versions and some of the variations wholly spoil the effect and even misrepresent the meaning. Some idea of the character of this version, if version it may be called, may be formed by the rendering of the opening

sentence: "Four score and seven years ago our Fathers established upon this continent a Government subscribed in liberty and dedicated to the fundamental principle that all mankind are created equal by a good God.” The incorrect form of the close, "That the Government the people founded, by the people shall not perish," is found, also, in the report of the Chicago Tribune, which is otherwise in the main correct. The Missouri Republican is the only paper noted that was satisfied to give merely an abstract of the address. This abstract concludes as follows: "that the government for and of the people, born in freedom, might not perish from apathy." It is fair to assume that the persons whose acquaintance with the "Gettysburg Address" was limited to any one of these distorted versions did not give it a very high position as a specimen of oratory.

Of special interest in connection with the early newspaper reports is the variety of titles under which Lincoln's address is referred to,