I always feel a bit sorry for Edward Everett, the 19th-century American professor, politician, governor and diplomat. He gave the oration at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery in November 1863, speaking for two hours (the text of the speech is here).
Everett was famous for his erudition and his power as a speaker, but after he finished his great speech, the President stood up and added a few words. The three minutes that followed became perhaps the most famous speech ever given: Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. In contrast Everett's effort is almost completely forgotten.
I mention this for a couple of reasons. Today is the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky. His legacy is perhaps the greatest of all the US presidents. For example, one of the treasures of the American Collections at the British Library is a rare printing of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Lincoln and his two secretaries of state, recording the intention to free the enslaved population. He is also, of course, remembered for his death in front of the play Our American Cousin in 1865.
I also like the idea that history is full of a jumble of events, some remembered, others declining into obscurity, like poor Everett's text. We have been able to put some of these on display in the exhibition, including a large document decorated with an array of seals that records the 'union that never was', a plan to unify the Scottish and English parliaments in 1604. The Scottish parliament approved, but the English did not. The two parliaments continued to exist independently for another century. It's always good to know that the future is not already written, and that we can have some say in it.
More personally (and with a reminded that there are only a few more weeks to see the exhibition) I'm also starting work on my next project, a 'web feature' at the Library, looking at the American Civil War, and in particular its connections with Britain. For example, anti-slavery campaigners boycotted Southern cotton, while Britain also supplied ships to the Confederate States, leading to the notorious Alabama Claims.
Finally, the sentiments of Lincoln's speech always bear repeating:
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.
