Lincoln's Speech Writers

Lincoln's Speech Writers

On November 18, 1863, Abraham Lincoln boarded a dedicated four-car train for the eighty-mile trip from Washington DC to Gettysburg Pennsylvania where he had been given a last-minute invitation to speak at the dedication of the new national cemetery following the three-day battle of the Civil War. Lincoln was not the keynote speaker; that was the well-known orator, Edward Everett. Everett spoke for two hours using the florid language that was expected of public speeches in the Victorian era. Lincoln was only expected to make a few brief remarks.

This is just a silly work of fiction that I imagine might have taken place the day before that historic event. Its genesis begins with the modern idea of political speech writers and asks what Lincoln might have done had speech writers prepared his remarks at Gettysburg?

Needless to say, there are no sexual situations in this story.

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Sitting in his railcar with the rhythmic click, click, click of the wheels on the tracks, Lincoln was alone with his thoughts. He knew that this was a critical moment in his presidency. The war was dragging on and Lee seemed unbeatable. Just weeks before, popular opinion held that he would not gain reelection the next year. Then Lee miscalculated, something he seldom did. His army crossed the Potomac and moved to separate the northern capital from the rest of the Union. After a bloody three days of battle at a random and unimportant town where two great armies were thrown together unprepared and unplanned, Lee had retreated back across the Potomac.

This was the moment that Lincoln had waited for. The northern army had secured a great victory, although Lincoln's overly cautious generals had allowed Lee's army to escape unchallenged after defeat. Lincoln would spend the night in Gettysburg and tomorrow he would give a speech at the dedication of the cemetery there. This was his time when he would try to reinvigorate the north in the struggle of the war. The Union needed to rededicate itself to the cause, and he had to remind them of why this war was being fought.

Lincoln reached into his vest pocket and drew out the speech he had been working on. He wasn't happy with it. It was too short. It lacked the flowery prose that great orators of the day could spin for hours without end. It read more like a lawyer's closing remarks at a trial viewed only by a jury of a dozen men. He was tired and he needed to rest.

Looking down the isle of the railcar, he saw the four men that Seward had hired. Seward had been Lincoln's rival in the election, and he was slow to accept Lincoln's offer of a cabinet position. However, over time he had become Lincoln's trusted advisor. Seward thought that the solution to Lincoln's waning popularity was to bring in men who could help to craft the president's message to the nation. He called them "speech writers" and Lincoln was wary to say the least. Still, he wasn't one to refuse help when it was offered.

Lincoln folded his speech and placed it back into his vest pocket. Then catching the eye of one of the men, he motioned for them to join him. For a moment they looked uncertain, glancing at one another, but then they rose and walked the length of the car to sit with their president.

Two days earlier Lincoln had given his speech writers an early draft of his speech. Leaning forward, he began to explain to them that he felt the speech needed more of something, but he was not sure what. He explained that he wanted to make a sincere plea to the American people to shoulder the burden of the war in the hope of restoring the Union. His speech writers nodded that they understood and assured their president that they would provide him with a most eloquent and compelling speech. They would not disappoint him. Once dismissed, his speech writers had withdrawn to a private room where they began to write.

Fortunately for them, Lincoln could not hear their comments as they worked. Soon, they began to snicker until they could hardly contain their amusement.

"This is awful. My child could write a better speech!"

"I can't believe he's still talking about slavery. Doesn't he know that's a losing issue?"

"And here... does he need to tell everyone we are fighting a war! We know! He's dedicating a cemetery. He doesn't need to tell anyone."

"I still can't believe he got elected."

"And here... if we can't dedicate the cemetery, then why are we there to dedicate the cemetery?!"

"There is not one word of the north winning the battle or that we will win the war. He's missing a golden opportunity."

"What is this, a two-minute speech?"

"Think we can work the word 'rube' in somewhere?" That remark brought more than the usual snickers.

Confident in their talents, the speech writers set about their work.

As Lincoln's speech writers approached, he wondered what they would have for him? He didn't know these men, but Seward was confident in their abilities. Maybe they could provide him with that something extra he was searching for. With pride and confidence, they handed the president twenty-three pages of text carefully transcribed by an artful hand. He could not deny it was lovely to look at and he began to read, and as he read his mood darkened. There was paragraph after paragraph of florid Victorian prose that went on for pages and said nothing. There were similes and metaphors galore, with analogies and similitudes thrown in for good measure. In true Victorian style, his speech writers had gone to great lengths to avoid the vulgarity of any explicit reference to the suffering and death of the battle.

Once again exhausted by the isolation of his office, he thanked the speech writers saying, "This is no less than what I expected." and they returned to their seats. They were confident in their efforts and congratulated themselves for having saved Lincoln from unbearable embarrassment.

Lincoln quietly folded the papers and placed them in the pocket of his jacket. He muttered to himself, "Useless!" Reaching back into his vest pocket, he removed the latest draft of his speech and began to read:

"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.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on 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 altogether 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 struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. 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 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."

"Yes, that will do." he thought to himself. "It says what needs to be said. May God forgive us."

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At this time in history when the people of Ukraine are fighting for their lives and independence, these words of Lincoln seem especially relevant. Their courage and dedication should be an inspiration to us all that some things are worth sacrificing for. My thoughts and prayers are with them.