JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Abraham Lincoln thought the world would little note nor long remember what he said at Gettysburg, but his call for a new birth of freedom out of the carnage of the Civil War has long endured.
Now, fourscore and 70 years later, Jeffrey Brown looks back at the legacy of the address.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): It was just five months after the Civil War's bloodiest battle when Abraham Lincoln came to help dedicate a national cemetery to honor the 51,000 men killed, wounded, captured, or missing.
About 15,000 spectators were in attendance. The keynote speaker, famed orator and politician Edward Everett, spoke for two hours, Lincoln for two minutes, and, with some 270 words, delivered one of the most memorable addresses in American history, helping make sense of the great sacrifice and loss of the war, reshaping and, for many, redefining the nation's identity going forward.
One of five existing copies of the manuscript is now on display at the Library of Congress in Washington. It's believed to be the first draft and the one from which Lincoln read that day. It's written on two pieces of paper, one formal in pen, the other on a notebook page and in pencil.
Michelle Krowl is the exhibit's curator.
MICHELLE KROWL, Library of Congress: What you see is that Lincoln worked on the address in Washington first, and then probably got to Gettysburg and changed his mind about the ending. So you can think about what might have inspired Lincoln to change that ending about a new birth of freedom and a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
JEFFREY BROWN: A century-and-a-half later, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is honoring those sacred words by urging Americans to post videos of themselves reading Lincoln's speech on the Web site learntheaddress.org.
Dozens of notable public figures, including all five living U.S. presidents, have submitted recordings.
FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: That this nation under God.
FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Shall have a new birth of freedom.
FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: And that government of the people.
FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: By the people, for the people.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Shall not perish from the earth.
JEFFREY BROWN: Those same words were also echoed today in Gettysburg, as thousands flocked to the site of Lincoln's address for a ceremony commemorating the 150th anniversary.
"Lincoln's words to honor loss spark debate and dedication to American freedom" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 11/19/2013
Excerpt
SUMMARY: President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address articulated a powerful message 150 years ago that endures today. How did a speech with so few words come to effect such great meaning in American history? Drew Gilpin Faust of Harvard University and Richard Norton Smith of George Mason University join Jeffrey Brown to offer reflections.
RICHARD NORTON SMITH, George Mason University: Lincoln came to dedicate the field of honor that had been fought over, and at the same time he came to define the war, in some ways to define the nation. One way he did that was to begin with a history lesson. Fourscore and seven years ago refers to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence and the Jeffersonian ideal, the egalitarian ideal that all men are created equal.
Lincoln is telling his countrymen that the ideal of America, the egalitarian ideal of America existed before it was codified in the Constitution. That's critical. That's absolutely essential, because that's the America in a very real sense that Lincoln was rededicating his countrymen when he talked about a new birth of freedom.
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