The Gettysburg Address is a speech delivered by President Abraham Lincoln on 19 November 1863 at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Battle of Gettysburg. The speech, roughly 270 words in length, redefined the purpose of the American Civil War in terms of national founding principles and has become one of the most cited and analyzed texts in American political history.

The dedication ceremony was organized primarily by Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin and lawyer David Wills, who invited Lincoln as a secondary speaker; the principal address was delivered by orator Edward Everett, whose remarks ran approximately two hours. Lincoln's speech followed and lasted roughly two minutes. Five manuscript copies in Lincoln's hand survive, differing in minor particulars; the “Bliss copy,” made in 1864 at the request of Colonel Alexander Bliss, is considered the authoritative text and is the version most commonly reproduced. For a fuller account of the speech's composition, delivery, and reception, see Gettysburg Address - History.

The address opens by invoking the nation's founding eighty-seven years prior - “Four score and seven years ago” - placing 1776 rather than 1787 as the republic's origin point, a choice with interpretive significance. Lincoln framed the war as a test of whether a nation founded on equality and self-government could survive. The speech's concluding passage calls on the living to dedicate themselves to completing the work of those who died, so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The address does not mention slavery by name, the Confederacy, or specific battles or commanders. For the full text, see Gettysburg Address - Full Text.

The speech has generated substantial and ongoing interpretive debate across several dimensions.

Founding date and authority. Lincoln's “four score and seven years” points to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence as the republic's founding moment, implicitly subordinating the Constitution of 1787. Whether this framing accurately reflects the constitutional order or represents a rhetorical reorientation of it is a matter of ongoing scholarly and political debate. See Gettysburg Address - 1776 vs. 1787 Debate.

Equality claim. The address asserts the nation was “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” drawing directly from the Declaration. Historians and legal scholars disagree about what Lincoln understood “equality” to mean, how it mapped onto the legal and social conditions of 1863, and what political work the speech was doing at that moment. See Gettysburg Address - Equality Claim Debate.

Rhetorical transformation. Historian Garry Wills argued in Lincoln at Gettysburg (1992) that the address quietly but deliberately reframed the Constitution's meaning - a thesis others have challenged as anachronistic or overstated. See Gettysburg Address - Constitutional Reframing Viewpoint.

Religious language. The speech employs language drawn from Protestant funerary and sacrificial traditions - “consecrate,” “hallow,” “devotion,” “new birth.” The significance of this language for understanding Lincoln's theology, the civil religion of the Union cause, and the address's rhetorical persuasiveness is an active area of discussion. See Gettysburg Address - Religious Language Debate.

There is broad scholarly consensus on the factual particulars: date, setting, approximate length, the five surviving manuscript versions, and the Bliss copy as the standard text. Consensus does not extend to interpretive questions about the speech's constitutional significance, Lincoln's intended meaning, or its long-term political effects, all of which remain actively contested.

• Unionist-Nationalist Viewpoint - The address articulates a coherent and legitimate national identity grounded in the Declaration, giving the Union cause a moral foundation that transcends the immediate conflict.
• Constitutional Originalist Viewpoint - Lincoln's framing elevates the Declaration above the Constitution in ways inconsistent with the original constitutional structure and represents a rhetorical, not legal, move.
• Lost Cause Viewpoint - The address is a politically motivated recharacterization of a war fought primarily over constitutional questions of state sovereignty, not equality.
• Civil Religion Viewpoint - The speech functions as a founding text of American civil religion, sacralizing democratic self-government in quasi-religious terms independent of Lincoln's personal intent.

• Gettysburg Address - History
• Gettysburg Address - Debate
• Gettysburg Address - Historical Consensus
• Battle of Gettysburg - History
• American Civil War
• Declaration of Independence
• Constitution of the United States
• Abraham Lincoln
• Edward Everett

1. Lincoln, Abraham. “Gettysburg Address” (Bliss copy), 1864. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
2. Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America. Simon & Schuster, 1992.
3. Everett, Edward. Letter to Abraham Lincoln, 20 November 1863. Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress.
4. Wills, David. Letter inviting Lincoln to speak, 2 November 1863. Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress.
5. Boritt, Gabor. The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows. Simon & Schuster, 2006.
6. White, Ronald C., Jr. The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words. Random House, 2005.