Why Aren't We Reading or Hearing the Gettysburg Address Today?

The Gettysburg Address is to Memorial Day what the Declaration of Independence is to July 4.

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For years now, ever since I became a yuppie professional addicted to NPR, I have always enjoyed the annual ritual of the reading of the Declaration of Independence on the morning of July 4.

Like Independence Day, Memorial Day is typically celebrated by mattress sales. Unlike July 4, however, there is no tradition of reading or proclaiming a great American document, even though the Gettysburg Address

1. perfectly summarizes what Memorial Day is all about; and

2. may be, next to the Declaration and the Constitution, the greatest summary of what America means. And even that is a close call

I encourage you to celebrate Memorial Day, in the spirit of honoring those who have given “the last full measure of devotion” to their country, by reading the Gettysburg Address for yourself.

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 battle-field 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 can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not 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.