The Gettysburg Address - Analysis

The Gettysburg Address was a speech given by President Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863 (Lincoln 401). He began the address by stating the date of foundation of our great nation, and began into a statement that "we are engaged in a great civil war" (Lincoln 402). The next lines of his speech stated that the war would be the true test of our nation's strength, and that the lost lives should be honored with a place of burial in our country (Lincoln 402). The main section of Lincoln's address closely related to some of the philosophies of Henry David Thoreau. In Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience," he describes a time where he spent a night in jail because he would not pay his poll tax (Barney). Thoreau was very outspoken on the issue of slavery, as was President Lincoln. Both men were very verbal with their anti-slavery ideas. Another similar philosophy that the two men shared was an idea that the American people needed to act in order to get things done. Lincoln's address said that "is 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" (Lincoln 402). Lincoln wanted the Americans to act out and finish the work that was started by the early soldiers. Thoreau was a proponent that the citizens had a civil duty to act out against the government when it was necessary. Lincoln wanted America to make it through the civil war and become their own nation, much like when Thoreau wrote his essay "Self-Reliance." His essay was about becoming an individual and not striving to imitate others. Lincoln's address was aimed in the direction of creating a new, single union after the civil war. Thoreau wrote in his essay "Our houses are built with foreign taste" (Thoreau 181). He then finished the excerpt stating that all people should imitate nothing and should strive to be individual. Our country was struggling with the civil war in an effort to be individualist.

Lincoln, Abraham. "The Gettysburg Address." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 400-402. Print.


Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Self-Reliance." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 180-181. Print.

 Barney, Brett, and Lisa Paddock, eds. "'Civil Disobedience'."Encyclopedia of American Literature: The Age of Romanticism and Realism, 1816–1895, vol. 2, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008.Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EAmL0453&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 8, 2012).