Despite its short brevity, the Gettysburg Address has come down as one of the most influential speeches given in American history. It was only three paragraphs long, but it became the North’s creed for the rest of the Civil War. Today, selections from that creed are still remembered and exonerated as the mission statement of America. Growing up in a Christian environment, Lincoln learned to adapt ideas and phrases from the Christian creed and use them in politics. In fact, Adam Gopnik argued that Lincoln’s rhetoric was “deliberately Biblical” and said, “Lincoln had mastered the sound of the King James Bible so completely that he could recast abstract issues of constitutional law in Biblical terms, making the proposition that Texas and New Hampshire should be forever bound by a single post office sound like something right out of Genesis.”1 That begs a question: Was the Gettysburg Address also framed in Lincoln’s characteristic, biblical rhetoric?
Midway through his speech, Lincoln cried, “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground.” Before that, he spoke of the necessity to dedicate the land in honor of the fallen soldiers who had given their lives so all men could live in total equality; so that all men would be equal before the law. But Lincoln cut this off, arguing that their own blood had already consecrated the land far more than any vain words possibly could: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” Politicians may speak, but it is the soldiers on the frontlines who make the necessary sacrifices and give away everything. Lincoln’s final cry in the Gettysburg Address was that instead of forgetting the sacrifices those soldiers made, their legacy would be carried on through the continued cause which they gave their lives for: “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.”
Throughout that short speech, Lincoln used the word “dedicate” six times and “consecrate” an addition two times. Both of those words alluded to the Old Testament which often spoke of the dedicated Levites and the consecrated Jewish Temple. In other words, those terms were associated with purity and closeness to God. Similarly, Lincoln used the terms to address the purity of the cause for which his soldiers gave their lives—equality among men—which he said was the same cause the Founding Fathers fought for. And their bravery and spilled blood would cleanse the ground and purify it.
Although his speech was short, it was his biblical rhetoric on consecration and dedication that provided the framework of the entire speech. The parallels are too strong to be ignored. As Gopnik said, Lincoln mastered the sound of the King James Bible.
- Adam Gopnik, “Abrahan Lincoln’s Words, Maybe,” The New Yorker, May 12, 2001, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/05/28/angels-and-ages (accessed January 28, 2025) ↩︎
Asher Sisneros 