Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Echoes of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer

282 Pages·2009·3.58 MB·English

by  A. E. Elmore

Four score and seven years
ago our fathers brought
forth on this continent, a new
LINCOLN’S
nation, conceived in liberty,
and dedicated to the proposi-
GETTYSBURG tion that all men are created
equal.No we are engaged in a
great civil war, testing whether
ADDRESS
that nation, or any nation so
conceived and so dedicated, can
long endure. We are met on
Echoes of the
BIBLE
and Book
of
COMMON
PRAYER
A. E. Elmore
LINCOLN’S
GETTYSBURG
ADDRESS
(cid:37)
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LINCOLN’S
GETTYSBURG
ADDRESS
Echoes of the
BIBLE
of
and Book
COMMON
PRAYER
A. E. Elmore
(cid:37)
southern illinois university press
carbondale
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Copyright © 2009 by the Board of Trustees,
Southern Illinois University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Elmore, A. E., 1938–
Lincoln’s Gettysburg address : echoes of the Bible and
Book of Common Prayer / A. E. Elmore.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8093-2951-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8093-2951-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809–1865. Gettysburg address—
Language. 2. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809–1865.—Oratory.
3. Bible. English. Authorized—Language. 4. Episcopal
Church. Book of common prayer (1790)—Language.
5. Christianity and politics—United States—History—
19th century. 6. Political culture—United States—
History—19th century. I. Title.
E475.55.E466 2009
973.7092—dc22 2009005087
Printed on recycled paper.
The paper used in this publication meets the mini-
mum requirements of American National Standard
for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1992. ∞
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In memory of Medgar Evers
1925–63
Brother, friend,
Best of men
In honored glory,
The unknown soldier
He gave his life
That others might have life
And have it more abundantly.
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Contents
Preface ix
Prologue: Another Time, Another Place 1
1. The Forgotten Bible 10
2. Lincoln’s Knowledge of Bible and Prayer Book 21
3. Birth and Rebirth 40
4. Fitting and Proper 77
5. Consecrate—Dedicate—Hallow 87
6. O Brave New Words 104
7. “Under God”—Aforethought or Afterthought? 129
8. Controversial Proposition 149
9. The Essence of Lincoln’s Style 180
10. The Heart of the Message 190
Epilogue: Catechism and Conclusion 219
Appendix: Four Versions of the Gettysburg Address 231
Notes 235
Works Cited 251
Index 259
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Preface
T
his book is dedicated to the least known of all the great heroes of the civil-
rights movement, a man who gave his life for what Lincoln at Gettysburg
called “a new birth of freedom.” Medgar Evers, Mississippi field secretary of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was shot in the
back by white-supremacist Byron de la Beckwith shortly after midnight on June
12, 1963, during the one hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclama-
tion and the Gettysburg Address. He died in the narrow halls of a segregated
hospital in one of the smallest, darkest hours of a new day.
The new birth for which Medgar Evers gave his life had been celebrated the year
before his death when James Meredith, successfully represented in a titanic legal
struggle by Evers and the NAACP, had ended more than a century of segregation
at the University of Mississippi. The same new birth had been celebrated again
just the day before Evers’ death when two African American students, Vivian
Malone and James Hood, had ended an even-longer history of segregation at the
neighboring University of Alabama, where Governor George Wallace had made
his famous but futile “stand in the schoolhouse door.”
Only hours before Evers paid the price of his life for his faith in freedom,
President John F. Kennedy went on national television to praise Alabama’s stu-
dents for ignoring “threats and defiant statements” and for keeping the peace.
The unspoken reminder behind his words was the death and destruction that
had rained down on Oxford, Mississippi, when, upon Meredith’s entry into Ole
Miss, Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett had roused an angry mob to arson and
murder with threats and defiant statements. Kennedy’s address on the evening of
June 11 reminded the nation of the Emancipation Proclamation: “One hundred
years have passed since Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons,
are not fully free.” The president also reminded the nation of the Gettysburg
Address and the document that Lincoln himself had echoed there, the Declara-
tion of Independence: “Our nation was founded on the principle that all men
are created equal.” Because our nation’s unequal treatment of black Americans
represented “a moral issue ... as old as the scriptures,” Kennedy said he would
ask Congress “to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to
the proposition that race has no place in American life or law.” His chosen word
“proposition” was taken straight from the Gettysburg Address.
After Evers’ death and a stately burial in Arlington National Cemetery that
was arranged by President Kennedy, Mrs. Myrlie Evers memorialized her beloved
ix
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