Gettysburg Address Summary and Analysis

This lesson discusses the Gettysburg Address, one of the most famous speeches in American history. Learn more about what Abraham Lincoln's speech means and test your knowledge with a quiz.

The Purpose of the Speech

Even though Abraham Lincoln's 1863 speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania is the speech that everyone remembers, Lincoln was not the featured speaker that day. That honor went to Edward Everett. Lincoln and Everett had traveled to Gettysburg to dedicate a national cemetery. Sadly, the United States needed one because of the tremendous death toll of the Civil War.

Everett, a former senator and the former president of Harvard College, was known as a wonderful speaker. He gave a powerful speech that day and addressed the crowd for more than two hours. Lincoln's speech was not nearly that long; the Gettysburg Addresslasted about two minutes and is only 272 words, but those words are very memorable.

All Men Are Created Equal

When Lincoln stepped to the podium, his first words were about the Founding Fathers and what they intended for the new nation. Lincoln drew from the Declaration of Independence when he said that the nation was based on the idea that 'all men are created equal.' While that may not seem very controversial today, this was a radical idea in 1863; the Constitution said nothing about equality.

Lincoln was saying that the Founding Fathers were the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, not the signers of the Constitution. It was a message to Confederates, who liked to point out that the Constitution did not prohibit slavery. Lincoln implied that the Declaration of Independence expressed what the Founding Fathers really wanted for the United States.

The Survival of the Nation

Lincoln then said that the country was fighting a civil war to determine if a nation based on equality 'can long endure.' The men who died in battle had given their lives to help preserve the Union. That was the reason for the new national cemetery; however, Lincoln said that that work was not done. It was up to the living to continue to fight for the country's survival so that 'these dead shall not have died in vain.' Lincoln urged Americans to stay focused on keeping the Union together so that democracy, or 'government of the people, by the people, for the people,' could survive.

A New Birth of Freedom

If there was any doubt about what the motivation for the Civil War had evolved to become, Lincoln cleared it up at the end of the Gettysburg Address. When the war began in 1861, Lincoln's goal was to keep the United States alive. He firmly believed that, in order for the nation to survive, the Southern states had to be brought back into the Union. That goal was not eliminated but, over time, the war became about more than putting the country back together. When Lincoln said that the nation 'shall have a new birth of freedom,' he said that the war was about ending slavery, too. Lincoln never said the word 'slavery,' but it was understood that the people in the United States who were not already free were slaves.