145 years ago, on November 19^th, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln made some brief remarks at the dedication of the soldiers' cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The brief, two-minute Gettysburg Address entered into American political literature.

The event is commemorated every year in Gettysburg with a gathering of Civil War re-enactors, blue and gray, who hold unit memorial services and then participate in a parade in full uniform, with period music, period flags flying, down the picturesque streets of Gettysburg. A re-enactment of the Gettysburg Address is also made, on the spot in the cemetery where scholars think Lincoln stood.

Just over five months before, one of the greatest bloodlettings in human history had taken place in and around the town of Gettysburg, then with only a population of a few thousand as the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac clashed for three days. The battle, many believed, decided the fate of the Union and the course of American history.

In the aftermath of the battle, the problem of collecting and interning the fallen who lay across the battlefield became an urgent problem. 17 acres of land near Gettysburg was purchased for that purpose. The dedication ceremony for the soldiers' national cemetery was scheduled for November 19^th.

The principle speaker was Edward Everett, a politician who had been a Congressman, a Senator, a Governor of Massachusetts, a Secretary of State, and President of Harvard. Everett was considered the greatest orator of his time. His address lasted for two hours and, typically of speeches of the time, contained classical historical references and a full narration of the battle.

President Abraham Lincoln was included in the dedication ceremony as an afterthought. His Gettysburg Address lasted just over two minutes and, at the time, was not considered exceptional. He spoke with a kind of simple eloquence to an audience of fifteen thousand, where over seven thousand soldiers, blue and gray together, were in their final rest.

The test of the Gettysburg address is familiar with anyone who ever studied American history. The core of its message, though, is this:

"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. "

Lincoln saw the Civil War as not just a war to preserve the union or even to end slavery, but to preserve freedom itself, of which he saw America as the last best hope of. Freedom, in 1863, was not the norm but the exception. The idea of democracy, in which people decide for themselves how they would be governed, was considered quaint by the sophisticates of Europe. Lincoln saw freedom as essential for the happiness and prosperity of human beings and the winning of the Civil Was essential for freedom. Thus:

"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."

As it was 145 years ago, and as it is now. The enemies of freedom have changed, but the "great task" remains the same.

Source: Nov. 19 marks 145 anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, New York Daily News, November 19th, 2008