As an American History teacher, I have spoken about the Gettysburg Address a number of times. I am awed by the fact that Abraham Lincoln was able to give one of the most powerful speeches in history in just 270 words.

Edward Everett, the former Secretary of State and the most gifted orator of his day, spoke for over two hours just before President Lincoln took the stage. So impressed was Everett with Lincoln’s performance he said, “I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

What made Lincoln’s short speech so powerful was not that he was looking to the future and promising something new. Rather, Lincoln moved listeners with a call to return to the truths Thomas Jefferson had called “self-evident.” One particular line in the speech illustrates this well.

In the final paragraph, the President stated, “…..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.” Lincoln was well known for meticulously rewriting his speeches. He put great thought into his choice of words, continuing to work on this speech right up to his train’s arrival in Gettysburg.

As the historian Richard Brookhiser puts it in his book, “Give me Liberty,” the President could have just as easily spoken about “a birth of new freedom” rather than the words he ultimately chose (“a NEW birth of freedom”). What Lincoln sought to convey, however, was not a novel form of freedom birthed by the Civil War but rather a return to an eternal freedom fashioned by God.

President Lincoln knew that America would only be made whole again by rediscovering those perpetual truths written into the universe by the Creator. The answer for our present troubled time is not the discovery or invention of new verities but rather a rediscovery of the unchanging truths that govern all creation.

Kevin J. Ritter

Washington County Commissioner