Had to say astonished many people, but they were polite. And steve carson made me squirm for my dinner by asking hard questions. But he too was a good he was very dubious about what i was saying. Im pleased to report that our friend, the late steve, told me not too long before he died, really, that he remembered that session. And he was gracious enough to say that his doubts had been relieved. And he agreed with me what i was arguing about. And, of course, it was as greg says, only a few years ago that we were honored my partner and i were honored for our editorial work by this group. And it was its something we are very proud of, and i cant thank you enough for that honor. You may not think that ive done you any favor of talking about the gettysburg address. Everybody knows the gettysburg address. Most of you can recite it, im sure. Its the most famous speech in the world. A lot of people think its the best speech in the world. Its storied. There are endless, endless mythology about it. And i know that the myths irritate some serious historians. But i think its all part of the landscape. If youre going to have something great, its going to have myths grow up around it. And thats just a sign that people take it seriously. Its one way to take Something Like the gettysburg address seriously. So with my apologies, i want to try and Say Something about the gettysburg address. But rather than read you a paper, i thought i would try to see if we could do this as a kind of open conversation. And while ill be glad to take questions at the end, as is usual, i thought i would try doing it in an open fashion, so that if what im talking about prompts a question, if you raise your hand, and ask the question if it doesnt lead us too far astray, i would be glad to get involved in a conversation. But, of course, i warn you, if i discover that were going hopelessly off the subject, and the time limit, ill cut you off and go on with the presentation. So the gettysburg address is something special, something unique. And were getting ready to celebrate its 150th anniversary. And weve had enough good books about the address in the last 20 or 25 years that we know quite a bit about it. We one of the last books that we had by gabor boreat did a marvelous job of showing what happened from the time the speech was given to the point at which it had become iconic. It took a while, if you remember. And he laid that out very nicely and showed us. And so it hasnt always had the stature that we give it now. And it couldnt have had. But its interesting to see the way in which or to think about the way in which its been held down through the years. Its probably the most mythologized of all of our historical speeches. I consider it the high watermark of American History. I really ive studied jefferson and the declaration, and in a way it isnt fair to compare these things. But important as the clarification declaration was, i think the gettysburg address is even more important. And ill try to tell you something about that as i go along. So what im im going to try and experiment here. What i want to do is i know that a lot of you know it, and you should be proud of that. Or if youre prompted, you can can kind of get on the text and stay with it. So im going to read it slowly. Ill start the first sentence and then i hope that the people who know the words can go along. We kind of get a chorus going here, get the base voices over here and get some higher tenor Abraham Lincoln voices going with it, and see what it sounds like. 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. Wow, this is terrific. But thats only the first sentence. Okay. Who knows how the next sentence begins . Anybody . Now now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. Great. Next line . We. We are met we are met upon a great battlefield 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 all together 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 who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world. 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 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. Thats very good. Thats very good. And once you get in, somebody else is you can jump on every once in a while. So we all know it. Now, that that is one version of the gettysburg address, right . Thats thats the final text. Thats the last text that he wrote. Believe me, if he had kept copy official copies, it would have changed a little bit. It wouldnt have changed much, i think. Hes really incapable, i think, of always do it the same way. He always has another thought and sees nothing wrong with putting the comma over here or changing the position of this word, if he thinks it would be better. He doesnt have the sense that he wants it frozen, which i think is probably a good idea. Let me just touch on a few places im sure some of you are as well aware as i am of some of these things. Its interesting what parts of the speech were different in some other version. Than the ones that we had. You may know that on this continent and upon this continent, he couldnt decide what he wanted. And maybe the next one, if he had done another version, would have he would have gone back to a pawn. You but he back and forthed on that one. He originally wrote, if we assume that the nickolai version is the oldest version and i do. He originally wrote, we have come to dedicate. But apparently at gettysburg, he wrote he said he repeated what he said in the sentence before. We are met. We are met to dedicate. And in revising it, he saw that his first thought was the best. Rather than repeat we are met, it somehow works better to say, we have come. And i think whats really remarkable is that he started with the sentence that we know as, it is all together fitting and proper that we should do this. Originally said, this we may in all propriety do. Thats an iambic pentameter. But its flat. It just shows you that and i think he had an affinity for iambic and perhaps even iambic pentameter. But that doesnt mean that it always raises the level. The poetic level. In this case, this is a flat line. This, we may, in all propriety do. Nobody would ever choose that. Over it is all together fitting and proper. Even though fitting and proper is a cliche in a way, its a familiar phrase. Somehow, if you can use a familiar phrase in the right place, it works very well. Its interesting that lincoln in all the versions we have in his hand always says, we cannot dedicate. Two words. We cannot. The newspapers always put that together. So the newspaper versions always say cannot. But if you say them both and you try them, you see there is a difference. Especially in a speech like this. We can not dedicate. Also, seeing the value of a change, originally he wrote, the world will little note nor long remember what we say here while it can never forget what they did here. But the while isnt very strong. So he changes it to but. And so we get that really memorable line. And the but helps us see and feel the two parts of the sentence. And as you know, the oldest version, the socalled nickolai version, is on on executive mansion letterhead. And then its connected to a different size sheet. A sheet of fools cap. In pencil rather than pen, so that what we have are almost certainly two parts, the first page of one draft which used to have a second page. And the second page of a different draft that was originally in pencil. And this juncture makes is part of the if youre interested in the text and the growth of the text and so forth, part of the puzzle about the fact that nickolai, his secretary, claimed he was there when lincoln put the finishing touches on his speech at gettysburg. And that he had that draft in the papers of lincoln. And he produces them. And argues even that they have fold, as though somebody folded it up and put it in his pocket. The trouble is that he didnt say the words. He made big changes, like the one change, where he completely threw out the sentence this we may in all propriety do. But it isnt crossed off in the manuscript. And then theres the theres a you know, the one point in the in the speech that i think gives one pause is it he says the same thing twice, which you can do, in a good speech and make it better. But he says it awkwardly. It seems to me. If we can say anything, in this really fantastic speech is awkward. But when he says, 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 and he said in the speech carried on. He realized later on that he needed a stronger word. And he put in advanced. But he said carried on. And then he almost repeats it. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. The unfinished work. But then somehow that sets up that really resonant series of that clauses. And so everything seems to be fine. Its interesting to me, although i dont believe that lincoln that the delivery manuscript that he held in his hand was the nickolai copy. For reasons that ill say in a minute. But it does make sense that he has trouble getting if that were the case, it would explain why he has this sort of weak repetition of the unfinished work. The unfinished work, the great task remain before us. Because it comes right exactly at that point in the manuscript. In my analysis and my book lincoln seward, i got interested in the kind of way that almost musical notation he uses the word here. But thats a little technical. But i think hes the kind of letterician and rhetorical master who thought at that level. And i think if theres one criticism that some people make, it is that he took one of the heres out in this version, the bliss version. That in the everett and ban versions before he had one more here. For which they here gave the full measure of devotion. In the last one he took it out. I still seem to want to hear it. And then there doesnt seem to be any doubt that he said under god. There is a school of thought or a position that says that he ad libbed it. I dont think thats the case. But at any rate, he changed the position when he got to studying his text, getting ready to push it out in the world as an official text. All the reporters who reported who had access to the the reporter who had access to the manuscript and the sten graphic reporter report that he said that this nation shall under god. And i cant tell whether we have become huh pitchateded to it coming after than before makes it seem like the right choice. But it is an interesting choice again. And this is one of the really interesting things. The changes he tends to make are minor. And it changes the cadence. It changes the sound a little bit. It doesnt do much, but all these little changes are the change of a person who is hearing what would be making maybe fine discriminations about what would sound better. Okay. What did lincoln really say . This is what he wrote in march. As a revision of his speech. The bliss copy dates from march. What did he say at gettysburg . This is where the controversy begins. And if you like the controversy, this is where the fun begins. Clearly what we have just had, what we all know, what we can recite, isnt exactly what he said. At gettysburg. And ive already pointed out a few of these things. But the words that he uttered are still debated. Theyre going to go on being debated. But the the argument you would think that the argument would be settled now that we have we videotape everything. And if cspan doesnt videotape you, your uncle will, you know, with his phone. Nothing goes unvideotaped anymore. So but the interesting thing is that that doesnt solve the problem the way that you think it was. Let me give you just a little example from my own experience. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Lincoln Douglas debates, my partner and i at the lincoln study center determined that we wanted to bring out a new edition of the Lincoln Douglas debate. And they needed a new edition, because what we had before was simply lincolns scrapbook where he cut out the chicago tribunes editions of his speeches and the chicago times editions of douglas speeches. Thats what we got for the debate. And as you probably know, the debates in those days, even though they were supposed to be word for word and so forth, they were heavily politicizeded. Because even if the stenographer was honest and reported exactly what lincoln said, if the editors didnt like that or thought it didnt sound right, or was a mistake, they would take it out. We know this, because the other side didnt have the same impulse. They were they were working it the other way. In fact, they didnt work for the paper. They worked for douglas. And lincoln was sure that they were editing his stuff. And the truth is that lincoln says, i tried to get the reporter who reported him for the tribune to let me see his transcriptions, but he wouldnt let me see them. And as we know, his reporter who worked for the tribune was a very, very good reporter because he was very much in demand of the law to take down transcriptions of very important cases. So we worked with both sides of the aisle, as it were. For our so while we were working on it, we had the great good fortune at knox college to have two wonderful inspiring Commencement Speakers within two or three years. The first was a guy that we had just sent to the u. S. Senate from illinois. In 2005. And this was this was the guy who is now president , barack obama. And a few years later, we had former president bill clinton. And i was interested in the fact that the college taped the stuff, audio and video. And so i wanted to compare the transcriptions. In the case of clinton, they the clinton people sent us a copy of what he said. And then the college made a transcription from just the videotape. And they didnt match. They werent really far off, but they didnt match. Because he didnt say exactly can what was written in his speech. He did what most people do, and he ad libbed some. He probably ad libbed a good deal. Anyway, it was what you could see is that if youre trying to get the exact text, what did he say, precisely, i know what he said, ive got his own speech where did you get it . From his headquarters. Not a good idea. So one of the things that wasnt in the written speech that i thought was unfortunate was that at the beginning of his speech, he made some informal remarks, which were complimentary to one of my books. And i thought that belonged in this book. And i was disappointed that it wasnt in the official transcript. And obamas speech was very good. And not long afterwards, there was an issue of Time Magazine dedicated to lincoln and they asked a number of people to write about lincoln. And obama did. He talked about what was going on in his mind when he is sitting there, watching the graduates march down the aisle and get ready for the program. And he said, what crossed my mind was, since he was sitting i was sitting where Abraham Lincoln was trying to run for the senate, trying to beat the incumbent, douglas. And even though he lost, it made it possible for me to be here in the senate. Which i thought was really remarkable. So in a way, what did what did what did lincoln say in the speech . Well, we have five versions of it in his own hand. One of them is the earliest one that i talked about, the nick olai, but the ones that represent his attempt to put down an official version are known as the everett the bancroft and the bliss. Which he did in february and march. That is to say, four three to four months after the speech. And the accounts that we have of how he did this, what he used, suggest that he didnt he didnt go back to his own manuscript. Or at least thats my sense of it. And the the ap reporter who filed the speech that most newspaper newspaperses used says that he didnt have a full set of notes, because he got caught up in the moment, and that he simply copied lincolns speech afterwards. Lincoln gave him permission to copy. So we have that text. And then we have a text by a very skilled stenographer, charles hale, who says that he got he was sure he got every word that lincoln said. And he couldnt find his paper, because he got caught in a jam, he couldnt get it through the telegra telegraph. The telegraph was full and then he got caught in the bottleneck on the railroads, came back to boston for several days. And so he didnt get his version in his paper. But he published it later. And if you compare the two, the one that the stenographer took down and the ap reporter who says he copied lincolns manuscript, theyre within a phrase or two the same text. This is fatal to the idea that he had the nickolai in his hand, which is missing a good bit of material and has some other stuff. And he would have to ad lib a good many things. So there isnt much doubt in my mind. But let me tell you about the newest book of the about the writing of the gettysburg address. And it is, i think, the most ambitious book. Its a new book by martin p. Johnson. Its called writing the gettysburg address. Ive had occasion to read over the years while hes been working on this, and its been a number of years, his articles he has written on various parts of aspects of the address. And ive also had the good fortune to read his book, which is just out with some care, because i was reading it before it came out. And it is a very good book. It is certainly the most ambitious study of the address that we have had in a long, long time, and probably the most ambitious of all of them. And it tells us a lot of interesting things. And clears up some some puzzles, and adds some things gives us a lot of new, interesting things to think about. And so i just wanted to say a few words about that, because its a book that youre going to be reading reviews of very soon, and i think it is a worthy effort. Let me give an example of a couple of things that he does that i think are really contributions to the study of the gettysburg address. He explains, i think, better than anybody ever has, and took a lot of time to look into the way the telegraph system worked. How the newspapers used it. How things were transcribed. Sent. And what he shows us is that some of the strange errors that occur in the telegraphic accounts are results of the telegraph kind of incremental errors t